Already several Twitter applications have been reaching out to fill roles that Twitter originally did not focus on. Microblogging has long been a little bit limited with only 140 characters to work with, but as more devices, apps, and clients begin to support a richer experience it has become a race to be the most comprehensive. Seesmic appears to be in the lead at the moment with the release of Seesmic Desktop 2.

With all of the apps competing with each other to dominate the at-a-glance total control of our social networks, even Mathew Ingram of GigaOM is thinking of changing his allegiance,

For some time now, Seesmic has been engaged in a battle with a number of other apps and services that provide a unified dashboard for a variety of social networks — including TweetDeck, HootSuite, Echofon and others. But the plugin marketplace and the extendibility it offers could put Seesmic ahead of the pack, at least for now, since it allows users to customize their activity streams in interesting ways, and effectively customize the app as well. I have been a die-hard Tweetdeck user for some time, but these new features have me thinking about switching my allegiance. My big problem now will be getting a monitor big enough to display all the tiny windows.

Among their primary innovations is the addition of a plug-in marketplace that enables users to move beyond just the favorite four—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Foursquare—by adding a giant variety of other social networks and social networking enhancement features. A plethora of URL shortners, image addition plug-ins, and interactivity enrichment awaits users.

Plug-ins for Seesmic 2 add popular forum social networks such as Ning; the ability to track what’s trending in links with social-search-engine Topsy; image sharing with Plixi, Yfrog, or Twitpic, which includes auto-thumbnail features; Sticky for discovering who’s tweeting the most about you; and even a translator, which tries its best to transform tweets into your native language, bridging gaps between cultures. By giving developers the reigns to produce more plug-ins, Seesmic hopes to create a watershed event of social media control focused on their product.

This comes on the heels of TweetDeck’s own update, which rather pales in comparison but becomes a good addition for them anyway. TweetDeck recently added support for Google Buzz to permit longer tweets (a longer version goes out to Buzz, with link in Tweet), enabling Twitter’s new t.co URL shortner, and their own support for blogging with Posterous, which recently added Ning to their stable.

With the roll out of their own URL shortner (t.co), Twitter is slowly beginning to move into areas that were originally expanded by third-party websites that enhanced Twitter. And if Twitter’s own iPad offering for their service is any example, it is a good time for Twitter applications and plug-ins to make their own move to extend and enrich Twitter, otherwise they’ll miss their chance to make a mark for themselves.

With it’s plug-in architecture, Seesmic Desktop 2 will probably be a powerful contender for some time to come. Here’s the video: