Skimmer: 5 social sites in one, on Adobe Air

We've seen a lot of attempts to offer an integrated experience social web experience, where users can easily interact with multiple sites in the same interface. Skimmer is the latest of these, and it's definitely a mixed bag. On the plus side, it's a cross-platform Adobe AIR app, and its UI is absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, it's still a bit sluggish and buggy -- not such a big deal, as it's still in beta -- and falls into the trap of doing a lot of things, but not doing any of them exceptionally well.

The things it does, specifically, are Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogger. Activity from all 5 apps is combined in a really slick-looking stream that forms the heart of Skimmer. You can click on any item to expand it, and Skimmer has its own Flickr and YouTube viewer modes for checking out photos and videos at a larger size. This app looks so good that you're better off with a second monitor dedicated to it.

When it comes to interacting with the individual sites, though, I found myself annoyed at some silly choices: you can see all the comments on a Flickr photo in the stream, but you can't see its title unless you switch to Flickr mode; you can retweet something from Twitter, but you can't favorite it. Unless you have that second monitor, or unless you happen to use all five of the sites Skimmer supports, you might feel too restricted by the app and find yourself heading back to your browser.

Tags: adobe-air, blogger, facebook, flickr, skimmer, social, twitter, youtube