TweetDeck gets header photos and expanded tweets

TweetDeck is the lone, rogue Twitter-owned client that doesn’t appear to be governed by the same consistency rules of the information network’s official web and mobile applications, but that doesn’t mean it can’t toe the line from time to time.

Case in point, the TweetDeck web and Chrome applications were updated Wednesday with two of Twitter’s most enriching features: header photos and expanded tweets. The additions improve how users experience Twitter profiles and individual tweets.

The header photos, introduced on Twitter.com and mobile apps last week, and are now visible on TweetDeck profiles as well and show off the personalities of users.

The client has also been updated with expanded tweets (pictured right), or Twitter Cards as they’re also called, to provide users with article snippets, in-line with each tweet, from media partners.

“This card shows an image preview from the sites, a short description of the page and often a link to the author, giving you a handy summary of the link to help you decide whether to view the web page,” TweetDeck product manager Richard Barley said in a blog post.

TweetDeck’s latest updates are web-only, however, and haven’t been carried over to the Mac and PC versions of the application yet.