Playing With Plurk
Anyone who knows me knows that I love to try out new things, so when I heard about Plurk, I couldn’t resist signing up to see what it was like. Many people suggest that it’s a Twitter clone, and it’s true that there are some similarities, like the 140 character limit for sending status updates. You can follow and be followed (having friends or fans in Plurk). But for me, that’s where the similarities end.
Plurk’s interface is very different. It’s a scrolling timeline moving from right to left, which seemed counter intuitive at first. However, it means that the latest content is always on the left where you read first. You can see all the updates you choose to follow (you can befriend people without getting their updates) in the top window. The bottom window shows your friends and fans and your karma (which is points you get from participating in the site.)
What I like about Plurk is that you can use lots of different verbs to describe your updates (thinks, feels, and so on) as well as a blank one so you can roll your own. You could end up talking about yourself in the third person, or you could behave Twitter style and just say what you want to say anyway. You can also set up an extended profile, MySpace style, but I haven’t done that yet.
A great feature is the ability to reply to a Plurk and see the responses in a drop down window, making it much easier to follow conversations than Twitter. The interface is definitely an improvement, but there’s one thing that’s lacking.
Goodness knows that the search features in Twitter aren’t anything to get excited about, but it’s virtually impossible to find your friends from other services in Plurk. You can add people from email accounts and IM but what I wanted to do was import my Twitter friends. No can do. Instead, I’ve been playing a hunt and click game to get a grand total of nine friends so far.
Plurk also makes it easy for you to group friends into cliques, though I haven’t tried this feature yet. Will I stick with it? I have no idea. I’ve got a lot of good friends on Twitter and unless they all move to Plurk it will probably remain secondary for me. That said, I think Twitter could learn a lot from Plurk, and it’s one to watch.
Here’s my Plurk profile if you want to add me.
yeah, I think the best thing about Plurk is that it is an alternative to twitter, which should encourage both services (and all the others too!) to seek quality improvements.
Even if you are a die-hard Twitterer you should join Plurk just to give twitter a friendly kick in the pants to improve!
I think Twitter needs it, Darren, and Plurk has a lot of possibilities.
I’ve found it necessary to be careful with the mouse’s scroll wheel on Plurk or the timeline spins by in a most alarming way! But those drop-down response boxes make it so much easier to follow a thread - yes, Twitter (much as I enjoy it) could take a note or two.
Yes, it does spin rather fast. But it’s also much easier to catch up when you’ve been away for a while.
[…] I have to agree that following conversations is easier on Plurk. […]
Hi Sharon, my Plurkbuddy! Awesome post. I hope Plurk is no longer “secondary” to you now, almost 1 month later!
See you there
Hi Amadou
I love Plurk and it’s not secondary any more
[…] been about a month since I reviewed Plurk, and in that time I’ve been getting more and more involved in the site. So I decided to try […]