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Plurk: What’s the Big Deal?

In: geek| web2.0

4 Jun 2008
Your life, on the line - Plurk.com

When a new Twitter clone emerges in an already crowded space, it is easy to denounce it as just another wanna-be and classify it as a failure. No one knew Twitter would take the internet by storm, competitors such as Jaiku and Pownce are still thriving today, but they are nowhere near the size Twitter is.

Enter Plurk. Plurk? Are you kidding me? What kind of a name is Plurk?

Noun. plurk (plüer-kh) – A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life in deliciously digestible chunks. Low in fat, 5 calories per serving, yet chock full of goodness.

Verb. plurk (plüer-kh) – To chronicle the events of your always on, action-packed, storybook, semi-charmed kinda life.

Well, that clears things up.

16 unread - bwana - Plurk.com

Anyway, Plurk is a relatively new service which emulates Twitter’s notion of short status updates. Plurk is centered around the notion of “Karma”, which is a point-reward system for participating in discussions and using the service. The interface on the web site mimics a river of moving information. The bottom axis is the time of day and the updates travel along it. There is emphasis on specific verbs such as “is, thinks, shares”. At first glance, it’s a horrible representation of status updates. Twitter has taught us that updates in 140 characters or less should always be displayed in a vertical, tabular format. Just look at all the bashing going on at Twitter, it’s not easy to read coming from that world. Plurk aims to thrash this mindset and present the data in a new fashion. A daunting task, indeed.

Let’s talk about more of the features:

  • Jabber/IM functionality – The IM bot, plurkbuddy, allows you to send and receive messages from your friend list. You can reply to certain threads by using the @ notation. Each message is preceeded by a number, and to reply to that message, use @[number] [reply message]
  • Mobile support – On your mobile device, navigate to http://www.plurk.com/m to see a much more traditional interface to Plurk. Here you can do the basic functions of plurk such as sending and receiving messages; however, you are limited to one page of messages
  • Friend import – Plurk has several mechanism for finding and inviting your friends. You can import via email address books (Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Live, MSN), via IM (MSN/Live, AIM, Yahoo), and via email invitations. There are basic hooks into Facebook as well.
  • Friend grouping – Plurk employs a basic friend organization feature, called “cliques” where you can send messages to groups of friends you specify. It’s not like FriendFeed groups as it is a personal means of organization.
  • In-line conversations – Plurk’s unique time line includes a nifty AJAX interface which allows you to easily post replies to “Plurks”. If you leave these miniature windows open, the conversation updates in (semi)real-time, giving it a very instant messaging type feel.
  • In-line video/image support - Much like Pownce, Plurk supports embedding Youtube videos and flickr images simply by linking to them in the update.
  • I’ve provided a video walkthrough of some of Plurk’s features including the mobile interface:

    I’ve used Plurk for almost a week (karma 38.07 at the time of this post), and I’ve found some of it’s initial shortcomings are not as huge as some make it out to be. Some obvious areas of improvement include:

  • API – Plurk definitely needs an API to succeed. According their developers, it is on the list of things to do right after they deal with scaling (maybe they’re learning from Twitter?)
  • Revamp of interface/optional views – While the timeline view is innovative, it’s not for everyone. I think giving users a choice of using this interface and a traditional one will win over the hearts and minds of those on the fence.
  • Extend mobile capabilities - The mobile interface is almost perfect, except it lacks history/archiving and filtering. The API may solve some of these shortcomings, but the mobile site as it stands is limited. UPDATE: The mobile site now has archiving
  • SMS support – This is a must have. A blog post on the Plurk blog hints that this may be on the horizon as it states “Carrier coming“. We need SMS.
  • So what’s the big deal with Plurk?

    plurk karma trends

    I believe Plurk is a strong candidate as a Twitter replacement for many people. Hear me out. Plurk encourages use of its system with Karma. The more Karma you accumulate, the more features you obtain. (currently only emoticons and profile features, but this can easily be extended). In an age where kids buy crappy Xbox 360 games simply to increase their gamerscore and unlock achievements, this is a huge advantage. Sure, it’s not for everyone, but there are a lot of potential users who would be addicted to Plurk not for the utility, but for the fun. I mean, who doesn’t like statistics? Think about why Jaiku and Pownce are lacking users. (Most) People stopped using them because everyone was on Twitter. There was little reason to go back if your friends were on Twitter. Plurk gives the user an incentive to return and to keep Plurking. That’s powerful.

    I know there are many early adopters who believe Karma is stupid and don’t understand the appeal, but how many of those same brilliant minds could grasp the appeal of Twitter during it’s inception? Not many.

    I can safely say that Plurk has grown on me. While I don’t see it as an immediate Twitter killer at the moment, I do see a great deal of momentum forming with Twitter’s issues. A wise man said: “The longer Twitter has issues and prohibits the user from using it, the more likely the user is going to forget why they fell in love with it in the first place“. The clock is definitely ticking. Twitter’s uptime has become the exception and not the norm. I do understand that the website is generally up, but for many, Twitter’s advantage to other services come from IM/Jabber and tracking capabilities, which are currently down. The API is also in a crippled state.

    If you find Plurk interesting, come on by and sign up. Using this link will increase my karma (lol), and also automatically add me to your friends list. (Hey, at least I’m honest :) ) Once you get started, here are some resources that may interest you:

  • The unofficial Plurk FAQ
  • Plurk Karma trends
  • Plurktionary
  • Short summary: There’s much more to Plurk that meets the eye.

    Related posts:

    11 Responses to Plurk: What’s the Big Deal?

    Avatar

    Plurk in Action « Hey Stephanie

    June 14th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    [...] (Video Credit: Bwana) [...]

    Avatar

    bwana18751

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    I should note that IM functionality was down during the creation of this post. I like using it a lot, but I couldn't demonstrate it at the time.

    Avatar

    gknee42171

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    The only problem I'm having with Plurk is that I can't get the IM to find friend feature to work. I know my screenname and password are correct. But it's new..so I'll let it be a lil buggy :)

    Avatar

    bwana18751

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    IM has been very unreliable since Plurk had its spike in popularity. They're back peddling and regrouping. When it's up, it's pretty cool.

    Avatar

    bwana18751

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    Hey thanks Ken. Great post!

    Avatar

    ThinkingSerious

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    I'm having a problem right now with the GMail importer.

    Avatar

    nils_hitze42631

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    "API – Plurk definitely needs an API to succeed. According their developers, it is on the list of things to do right after they deal with scaling (maybe they’re learning from Twitter?)"

    TOTALLY TRUE .. without API Plurk will die in like 2-3 Months .. we need Air Apps and Widgets and all this great stuff

    Avatar

    Ken Stewart (ChangeF

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    Bwana, met you on Plurk… and great post – and awesome video. I really enjoyed the presentation on the mobile app… I actually wrote a post on the same subject just yesterday… http://www.changeforge.com/2008/06/03/twitter-ego...

    Avatar

    d3bruts1d

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    Over the last day or so Plurk added the ability to import Twitter friends.

    More than anything right now, I think Plurk needs a search ability. Sure an API would be nice, but if you can't find older messages then does it really matter how they get into the service?

    One of the most requested things I've seen is SMS support. Though between Plurk/m and Ping.fm, I don't see a need for SMS in Plurk. That's just me though. Pownce has a "show my replies" which I find useful, would like to see something like that in Plurk.

    Overall, I've really enjoyed Plurk so far. Twitter was always missing that "community feeling" for me, however Plurk feels "fun". Maybe it's just the different people…

    Avatar

    Ken Stewart

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    They've got a widget for your blog, but you can only evidently adjust the height not width or color…

    Avatar

    Prisqua

    January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    I always thought that Twitter was more an online marketing tool or maybe it is because I have only (well most of them) people that basically market their sites so I use Twitter mainly for that too… when plurk is more friendly, more personnel…

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