Facebook Integration Arrives on TweetDeck

Over the weekend, Seesmic () announced their own desktop application for Facebook, as well as plans to integrate Status Updates into their own Twitter () client - Twhirl (). Today, popular Twitter client TweetDeck () is beginning testing on a new version of its software that includes integration with Facebook as well.

In a blog post, TweetDeck describes the functionality offered in what for now is an optional test version of the software: “You can click on the Facebook icon at the top and, once you have signed into Facebook and given TweetDeck authorization, this will add a new column full of each of your friends most recent status update which updates automatically once a minute.

From here you can email the update out to anyone, tweet it out over twitter, view the users online status and if they are online right now click on their name (or the green online status indicator) to open Facebook chat right within TweetDeck.”

Essentially, this means that your friends’ Facebook () Status Updates will appear much like the columns you’ve setup for seeing tweets from the people you follow on Twitter. However, the integration of Facebook Chat within TweetDeck is an interesting twist, as it turns the software into an IM client, in addition to all of its other functionality.

The option to more or less “retweet” your Facebook friends’ status updates could be controversial, since unlike Twitter, where updates are mostly public and hoping to reach as large an audience as possible, your friends don’t necessarily want their Facebook messages re-broadcast to all of your Twitter followers. This is perhaps one reason the Facebook Connect enabled version of TweetDeck is optional for now, so these issues can be sorted out.

Meanwhile, Facebook has to be thrilled to see the two most popular Twitter clients integrating Connect, as it means a likely increase in the volume of status updates, making the social network’s new real-time features more active and worthwhile.