Hootsuite App Directory – Woah…

Far out. Hootsuite have just unleashed third party apps which can be integrated into your dashboard! HootSuite is quickly becoming a ‘one stop shop’ for many social networks, and the new HootSuite App Directory is making a bold statement about where HootSuite sees itself in the social sphere.

HootSuite Pro and Enterprise users will now be able to add third party apps to their dashboards with current offerings from YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr and Get Satisfaction. Apps from DISQUS, slideshare, posterous spaces and summify are on the way too. Wow.

So how does it work?

If you’re a Pro or Enterprise user, you simply need to click on Tools -> App Directory

From there, you can select which apps you want to install, and once installed, click the ‘add stream button’ (at the time of writing, the ‘apps’ option isn’t available if you try to add a stream manually from your HootSuite tabs).

Once your new streams are set up, you need to connect that stream with your account associated with that service (e.g. YouTube). Unfortunately it looks like you need to authorise each stream individually, but it doesn’t take long.

At the moment, I’ve only played with YouTube, Tumblr and Flickr – all of which allow you to watch/view/read what you want right in your HootSuite streams.

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The big question: can you upload/share/blog via these new apps?

The answer is a big YES!

YouTube, Flickr and Tumblr all have options to upload content, using forms familiar to each service. Tumblr for example allows you to select from multiple blogs, choose to post text or photos, and add tags. Brilliant.

This is a huge step forward for HootSuite, and it will be interesting to see how this is taken up by users and app developers.

For more information, see the HootSuite blog and the Hootsuite App Directory site