Twitter to Announce Tweetdeck Acquisition?

Any serious Twitter user, whether for personal or business-oriented, knows all about the search for the perfect Twitter client. At protocol 80 we've tried our fair share, whether it be the official Twitter client, Seesmic, Hootsuite or Socialite. More often than not though we've come back to the mainstay of social dashboards applications - Tweetdeck.

Rumors have it that Twitter will announce their acquisition of Tweetdeck in the coming days for around 50 million dollars. If true, this won't be the first time Twitter has ponied up for a popular third-party application, not long ago they did the same by adapting much-loved Mac and iPhone versions of atebits' Tweetie application which is now the official Twitter application on those platforms.

ChromeDeck

With the success of Tweetdeck's in-browser web app built specifically for Google's Chrome web browser, nicknamed ChromeDeck for its seemlessly-integrated representation of the native desktop version of Tweetdeck, it may be that Twitter is attempting to brand an official application for Windows and Linux users to compliment the Tweetie redux available on Apple's hardware.

Running ChromeDeck, especially in Google Chrome's fullscreen mode, is the most feature-rich way to interact with not only Twitter but Facebook, Foursquare, and Google Buzz from one application. My hope is that if Twitter does announce a Tweetdeck acquisition they allow the Tweetdeck team to continue their work on the multi-platform version of the app. One of the most compelling reasons to use Tweetdeck in the first place is because it's your one-stop shop for managing your social media initiatives. Therefore if its functionality becomes limited to Twitter I think myself and other loyal Tweetdeck users will switch over to other free alternatives like Hootsuite that offer similar feature sets.