AlertThingy, an Air app for aggregating social networks, is poised to release an update to its recent version that improves filtering, adds groups and integrates powerful search. Next Tuesday AlertThingy 3.1 will have new filtering options which lets users identify items tagged as ‘very interesting’, as well as messages and comments ‘directed at the user’. In other words, you can leave it running on your computer if you leave the office and when you get back AlertThingy will track what you need to respond to and what needs your attention.

The next major change is Groups. Like Tweetdeck, the software lets you set up groups. But it now lets you group individuals from multiple networks. Grouping spans across networks including Twitter to Facebook, and interestingly, you can group any individual from any network with others. In other words, mashup news from friends on Twitter with friends on Facebook.

The third new aspect will be an improved search engine which allows for faster data mining up to 3 months in the past. So you can search multiple social networks simultaneously. Real time social web anyone?

The makers of AlertThingy (design & development house Howard / Baines) recently decided to dump FriendFeed but it supports Digg, Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce and Tumblr, besides Twitter and Flickr. However, if you want Seesmic, you’ll have to get Twhirl – owned by Seesmic.