Adium is a popular free instant messaging client for Mac OS X that supports multiple protocols through diferent libraries. What Adium isn’t, however, is a Twitter client. That’s about to change, starting with Adium’s version 1.4, with a sophisticated Twitter functionality integrated into Adium. The integration is accomplished using MGTwitterEngine, a library used to communicate with the Twitter API. While the Twitter service won’t initially be as full-featured as TweetDeck or Tweetie, it sounds like a great first attempt at replicating the basic Twitter functionality in an IM client. Download now Adium 1.4 beta.

Here’s what the service is expected to look like. You can follow us on Twitter at @appltweets.

Major Changes

• Requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later
• Added Twitter
• Added IRC
• Greatly improved group chats and group chat bookmarks
• Updated to libpurple 2.6.0

Twitter

• Timeline messages appear in a group chat, direct messages as a one-on-one chat with a contact.
• Adding and removing contact list buddies follows and unfollows them, respectively.
• Can customize profile settings (name, location, etc.) from the account edit window.
• Settings to customize: Update interval, Adium status updating, retweet links, and contact display in the contact list.
• Getting info on a Twitter contact displays all of their information and their latest 20 tweets.
• “Reply to a Tweet” window allows for pasting twitter.com URLs to easily respond to a tweet.
• Also includes support for Laconi.ca servers, such as Identi.ca

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• Twitterrific 2.0 for iPhone has been approved by Apple
• Twitterific 2.0 is definitely more feature-packed than Tweetie
• If Apple bought Twitter – The Joy Of Tech