Perhaps immediacy? But I don't need that. Anything else? - Adam Lasnik

The false sense of security that a million cats have successfully been wrangled? - Bill Strathearn

For twitter, I know lots of people created lists with Tweetdeck. Now that Twitter has it's own lists, that's not as important. But Tweetdeck lets you do more with your lists, I think. - Laura Norvig

Plus, Tweetdeck has nice looking column layout so you can see your lists, replies, full stream all at once. - Laura Norvig

Grouping a subset of users is the major benefit. - Louis Gray

I use Seesmic (although recently it hasn't been working, so I temporarily switched to Mixero) and for me the biggest benefit is to be able to manage 2 separate Twitter accounts in a practical way. Overall, I just find that these clients are more practical in terms of filtering people and content. - Patricia Müller

Bill... heh! Laura, I'm almost afraid to ask what more is needed ;). But nicer views, okay, that I can understand. Louis, isn't that grouping now unnecessary, given Twitter's Lists? Patricia, I can't even seem to manage one twitter account :P. But you raise a good point re: filtering content -- I guess that's re: saved searches, right? But can't you also do that via Twitter? I guess it comes down to the able-to-see-more-at-once, right? - Adam Lasnik

Exactly. My primary reason for using a client was the double account issue (and yes, it's a little overwhelming, but I need to keep connections in both languages). So that reason alone justified using a client for me. Now, filtering content came as a secondary benefit as I started having to sort through everything a lot of Twitter users usually do, but in 2 different languages. (both searches and user lists). Yes, you can do it from the website, but you nailed it, it's the being able to see it all at once that makes it a much more practical and time saving tool for me. If I had to do that via Twitter, it would take much longer if compared to the "at a glance" experience I have with clients. My favorite for this purpose is Seesmic because it supports multiple accounts (up until recently, Tweetdeck didn't, I don't think. Not if it does now) and I like the interface. - Patricia Müller

Ah, okay, that makes sense Patricia. Thanks for the info! - Adam Lasnik

Tweetdeck has retweet and direct message buttons, Twitter doesn't. (Although it has buggy pull-down menus for DMs) - Spidra Webster

I lean towards Tweetie2 and SimplyTweet (iPhone apps) - Mona Nomura from iPhone

hmm... just tried both Tweetdeck and Seesmic. Neither of them utilize the Friend Groups built into FB; TD invites users to completely recreate new TD-only FB Friend Groups. No thanks. :( - Adam Lasnik

Columns are key, even if you mostly handle just one account. You can see the tweets mentioning you or replying to you without switching back and forth. - Paola Bonomo

I can absolutely see how that stuff is useful for at-a-glancing, but I also feel it's a massive distraction and major info-overload. I am a curmudgeon for the most part when it comes to real-timing. There's very little in life that I need to know Right Now, very little that can't wait for a nightly (or even weekly) browse-through. - Adam Lasnik

I think it's more important for people who manage a social media presence for a brand. They need to know right away if someone mentions them or @replies them. - Laura Norvig

I use Twhirl and it's only because of multiple accounts and easy of posting to Twitter and identi.ca. The Twitter website has always been crap for me. In Twhirlw with just one click, I can retweet, reply, DM, lookup a user, see all tweets from a user, etc. Bonus is that it's fast. The Twitter website is slow and unfunctional. - Captain Bubbles

Seesmic & TweetDeck were both built as Twitter apps. FB is an add-on and not nearly as developed. I use Seesmic to manage multiple accounts (about me, work, & interest-specific), user lists, and to handle saved searches. - Cianna Stewart

you just answered your own question...it lets you not have to visit both sites separately - brainno722 (Peter)

oh yeah, everyone else has "retweet" except twitter.com (well, they gave it to selected users)... - brainno722 (Peter)

Peter makes a point. My browser (Flock) has FB and Twitter built-in. I can post, reply, DM and retweet, right from my broswer without going to the Twitter website (YAY). Only problem is that there are sometimes day long delays of seeing updated tweets from others. The FB sucks. I can see what my friends post, but to reply I'm forced to FB. BUT...if I want to share blog posts, Flicker, tweets or chat with FB, I can do all of that without visiting the FB website. - Captain Bubbles

Infodensity. I can look at my screen with Seesmic running on it and get a lot more information than just running twitter.com. - Robert Scoble

I think it depends on how you want to use Twitter. As a tool then you would use Tweetdeck etc and if just for casual following .com does the job - Khuram Hussain

Hey everyone, I appreciate the clue'ing in. Now the benefits are much more clear to me. Once again, the FF community shines through :-) - Adam Lasnik

you can use columns in tweetdeck to setup searchs based on keywords, that is not possible in twitter currently, you would have to manually search each keyword separately if using twitter, also you can log in to your twitter and facebook accounts and see all updates from one interface, also, haven't tried it in tweetdeck but with seismic desktop you can log into multiple accounts at the same time, useful if you have say 3 different twitter accounts, which makes sense if you are a twitter specialist or ghostwriter who uses twitter on someone else's behalf - Loc