Twitter buys TweetDeck for $40 million, gives us 40 million headaches

Earlier this month I was thinking to myself "self....what's the worst thing I could run across in tech news to read?"  Well, next thing you know I read a report rumoring that Twitter was looking to buy TweetDeck, the largely popular desktop app for an estimated $50 million.  Yeah, I think that answered my question pretty easily.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Twitter by any means.  Hell I spend a large part of my daily routine on there across multiple accounts so there is obviously love there.  I'm personally not a fan of how they do things.  Twitter likes to have tight control of the "user experience", which is basically anything we see or do on the service.  Normally, this is all fine and acceptable from a business or their product.  One small thing about this situation is how much larger Twitter has grown due to third party apps and the extra flexibility and features they provide.  Let's face facts....using Twitter on their website or through their official apps is no party.

Twitter really blew up and became a household name thanks to these apps and what they let users do.  They made the user experience what it is.  Despite this, Twitter already brought the fangs out recently when they announced they were not allowing any new third party apps to be developed, and were tightening the leash on existing apps.  Someone keeps trying to tell them that they do a horrible jobs in presenting their own view of a user experience and no one there is listening.  How many people actually use the website or official apps?  The numbers are not staggering.

Now, they've gone out and bought the most used desktop client out there.  A large part of me is praying that they don't change anything on it, as I love almost everything about it.  I don't want to have that taken away to keep it in line with their experience.  I definitely don't want to have to start using the Seesmic desktop app.  Not saying it's bad, just not my personal preference.  

At this point, it's honestly hard to say exactly will happen with this deal.  There is however too much potential for this to be a bad thing for the user which will force them to move to greener pastures, or possibly stop using the service.  I do ask you Twitter, before you decide to strip it all apart and make it to your liking....remember who brought you to the ballgame in the first place.  If it get's torn apart, that's gonna end up being a worthless investment you've got on your hands.