After almost two years of testing, Twitter has released a new version of Tweetdeck, the advanced dashboard that's meant for social media managers and other social media professionals – but there's a huge catch in order to use it again.
In a tweet and a support page, Twitter revealed that you need to be subscribed to Twitter Blue, its appalling subscription service where you not only get a blue tick beside your account handle, but better quality videos, fewer ads, and the ability to edit tweets, and some more minor additions. Things that, until Twitter Blue arrived, you got for free.
Originally released in 2008 and acquired by Twitter in 2011, Tweetdeck was laid out in a bunch of columns, so you could see how many had liked, retweeted, and followed one of your accounts. In essence, perfect for businesses.
Since Musk's takeover of the company, it's not only gotten worse, but this new version has gotten rid of almost everything that made Tweetdeck worth using.
Every step since 2022 has been a huge misstep
We have just launched a new, improved version of TweetDeck. All users can continue to access their saved searches & workflows via https://t.co/2WwL3hNVR2 by selecting “Try the new TweetDeck” in the bottom left menu.Some notes on getting started and the future of the product…July 3, 2023
As recent as July 2, Musk announced that there would be a limit on how many tweets users could view, and if the limit was reached, you would be unable to view anymore.
It was as baffling as his other decisions, such as allowing ticks when you subscribed to Twitter Blue, previously banned accounts now free to spread more hate speech, and letting go of the majority of Twitter's workforce.
And now, we have a worse version of Tweetdeck - with users already sharing how broken it is. From missing tweets to odd design choices.
But it goes even deeper than that - it's not available on mobile or as an app, just on a desktop browser, which limits plenty of users if they're away from a laptop or even a tablet.
It does seem like Twitter is doing everything it can to lose users, with many switching over to Bluesky and Mastodon over the past few days, and this change will do nothing to keep users around with the blue bird for much longer.
