Flickroom: Browse Flickr from your desktop

One of the most exciting Flickr developments in recent times, the Flickroom application allows desktop browsing of Flickr using the Adobe Air platform.

But this isn’t just another way of viewing Flickr…no, this is to Flickr what Tweetdeck is to Twitter. And its dark, neutral and pleasing appearance is very reminiscent of the Twitter desktop client. Take a look:

Ok, so what does it actually do? First of all, you authorize the app to access your Flickr account. Now you can browse your photostream, your groups, your sets…it is like being logged into the web interface only better presented (depending on your opinion – that’s mine). Across the top of the app are your main menu functions, including:

1. A button to view the most recent uploads of your Flickr contacts
2. A button to open the upload tool in Flickroom
3. A button to access the Flickroom chatroom – IN the app
4. A button to search Flickr – photos AND users
5. A button for the obligatory settings
6. A button to give feedback to the developers

There are a couple of things I want to focus on there.

The Upload Function

This is very, very clever. Easy to use, offers the full features that the Flickr web interface does and allows you to drag and drop onto the app rather than searching through your file structure. You can also add more than one pic at a time, though you can only edit details individually – a limitation of space more than anything else. Clever. As I said.

From there you can title your pic, give it a description, tag it, add it to a set and / or group and set its privacy level. All that before you hit upload.

Flickroom Uploader

The upload time is fast and you can view your new pics in your photostream by clicking the Reload link on the Photostream page.

The Flickroom Chatroom

This COULD prove to be one of the most useful tools offered by Flickroom. It’s certainly an interesting experience chatting with fellow users, learning how they use the app and what sort of things they find interesting on Flickr. It could be a brand new way of finding new users to follow that share the same interests as you. Right now I found it a little quiet and dominated by just a few users.

With the addition of rooms and more users – yes, it could be brilliant.

Browsing

The browsing experience in Flickroom is very good. Already connected to your groups through your account, the search function is strong and the app allows you to comment, favourite, add a note, save to your hard drive and even Tweet about the pic you are viewing.

You can control how much detail about the image is displayed ranging from a simply slideshow appearance to a sidebar with all the description, comments, tags, and EXIF data. From here you can also add the person who posted the pic as a contact.

If you’re looking for an aesthetically pleasing way of viewing Flickr on your desktop this is it – and it does compliment Tweetdeck in appearance, so if you are a style guru it’s ideal. Basically, you should never need to visit Flickr again. Except…if you want video. But you can bet the Flickroom team are working on that too.

Link: Flickroom

Have you been looking for a Flickr desktop app? Have you tried Flickroom? Do you know of any similar apps? Let me know in the comments.

Seesmic Desktop: Because it’s better than TweetDeck

Seesmic Desktop

Seriously, I’ve been using this all morning and it’s fantastic. Feels lighter than TweetDeck and provides all the functions you need for full on Tweeting.

It does lack the ability to update all your social networks in one hit, but I have just this second read a Tweet from @loic saying they’ll be adding ping.fm as they have in Twhirl – so problem solved! (when it goes live with it anyway)

This is the future. For now. Of course. Check it out.

Download: http://desktop.seesmic.com

Top 5 Twitter Apps

With Twitter continuing to spread like wildfire, attention has to turn to the applications that are increasing its usefulness. Here’s my Top 5 Twitter-related applications/addons/websites.

PowerTwitter: (@pt) A Firefox addon that increases the power of your Twitter pages when viewed in the Mozilla browser. It allows you to RT with one click, view rich media (pics/video) within the Twitter page, expand shortened links and mouseover any Twitter users pic to see five their latest Tweets. It also adds a Facebook tab so you can view your friends’ latest FB updates and a handy search box in which you can search within a user’s Tweets or across Twitter as a whole. Best of all though – you can turn off the options you don’t like. That’s real thinking from guys behind PowerTwitter.

ping.fm: (@pingfm) Update Twitter, Facebook and a whole host of other social networks with ONE post to ping.fm. Not only that, it will give you the power to do the same thing from your Instant Messaging client, email, iPhone, normal mobile phone and a whole lot more. VERY powerful tool for serial and thinly spread social networkers!

Twhirl: (@twhirl) Very handy social software client. In terms of Twitter, it will notify you when those you are following Tweet, it allows you to Tweet from it (and connects with ping.fm so you can update all your social networks with it) and handles multiple Twitter accounts. It also works with identi.ca, laconi.ca, FriendFeed and seesmic, comes with a host of nice skins to choose from and is just a joy to use do to its high configurability. Lighter than Tweetdeck and my favourite.

wefollow: (@wefollow) Twitter directory from the guy who brought you digg. Allows you to add yourself to it under up to three ’sections’ by simply Tweeting @wefollow with three #tags. Popular ones include #blogger, #socialmedia and #tech. If you’re looking for people with similar interests to you, this is the place.

tweetizen: (@tweetizen) Similar to wefollow, Tweetizen allows you to create and save groups of #tags which, when viewed, contain the latest Tweets from all over Twitter with those #tags. For example, I have created a World of Warcraft group which contains #wow, #worldofwarcraft and #warcraft. I can now view any Tweet with ANY of those tags. Very handy for learning more about your interests and finding new Tweeters to follow.

What are your favourite Twitter/social networking apps and websites? I’m always on the lookout for more.