Seesmic, which recently acquired the AIR Twitter client Twhirl, has shipped a new version of the software. There are minor improvements in Twitter functionality, mostly designed to keep it from requesting too many updates from the Twitter API, which produces the dreaded “limit exceeded” notice whether you use the app too enthusiastically. The Twitter service, which used to allow clients like Twhirl to fetch updates 60 times an hour, dropped its limit to 20/hour during the Steve Jobs keynote; it’s only back at 30/hour as of that writing. Twhirl can now adjust its update frequency so it’s always under the Twitter maximums.

Twitter will, at some point in the future, hopefully move to a push model for updates based on the XMPP protocol. At that day,

according to Seesmic, Twhirl will additionally be updated to use the protocol. That should solve at least one of Twitter’s capacity issues. nowadays, whether you press the update button one instance too many, you still date out.

Twhirl’s most visible improvements are in its FriendFeed support, where it now handles Gadgets and urls in items gracefully. You can plus share photos on FriendFeed via the Twhirl client just by dragging your image to a box in the client.

The app additionally supports FriendFeed rooms.

Seesmic support in Twhirl is still lost, as is the promised single-pane view that merges subject matter from the three services.

I like a Twhirl a great deal, but there are aspects of the Firefox add-on MySocial 24×7 that produce it an even better client for the FriendFeed.

Original post by Rafe Needleman