Plurk: What’s the Big Deal?

June 4, 2008

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.

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?

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.