Plurk Rivals Twitter as the Next Popular Microblogging Platform
Posted on January 16, 2010 - 17 Comments
Twitter – you either love it or hate it. The application has exploded onto the web, where not only everybody seems to need one, but even larger corporations have set up Twitter accounts. Tweeting is the next big thing! tons of people are getting into this new trend, while naysayers stand behind and wave their fingers in disgust.
Though Twitter may have it’s downfalls (and there’s plenty to pick at), there is hope beyond the horizon! For those of you who haven’t heard of Plurk, you should start by checking out all of features this new application has to offer! Similar to Twitter, Plurk allows you to create your own profile page, customize your avatar and page design, and also to friend people and follow their “plurks”!
But there’s even more, and Plurk’s new ideas may just blow Twitter back into the stone ages where it can stew.
Not to say that Twitter isn’t immesly popular and useful as it stands, and I wouldn’t just stop tweeting for the life of me! But it’s hard to ignore applications that have such an amazing start like Plurk has! Already at a PageRank 7 and 1,000 Alexa rank, Plurk is rising through the tides and showing it’s strength. But what does it have to offer?
Plurk’s Greatest Experience: Live Timeline of Updates!
While Twitter is set up to show new Tweets on your home page, it displays them in a newfeed style where you have to scroll through them all. This isn’t a bad style of doing things, but can be tedious and possibly annoying to the impatient. Plurk has a whole new method – a horizontal timeline, showcasing all of your previous Plurks in-line with all of your friends plurks!
This is the main feature I just can’t stop raving about, as it showcases such a brilliant user experience and connectivity with friends. You can share links, photos, videos, or just a plain status update of stating what you want, feel, need, etc. Below is an example of my Plurk profile for my website Blogger Den. I just opened the account a month ago, just to get a feel for the web app. And I’ve already fallen head over heels for it!
Plurk’s Status Updates – The Freedom!
Another great thing about Plurk? The freedom for your status updates! Instead of a basic 140-character limit to some description for an update, Plurk allows you to customize things even deeper. Changing things to “I hate”, “I wish”, “I hope”… there’s tons of them! It makes sharing your feelings with your friends easier, more fun, and a bit more controlled (check below for a small screencap from Blogger Den).
It’s not only this, but you can share links with your friends easily with Plurk’s status updates. This makes things so much more dynamic – whereas Twitter limits you to URL’s and character counts, you frequently need to use short URL’s to make your links fit into your stats updates.
Now this isn’t a complaint at all, just an observation of how much easier it is to plurk a link to your friends than it is to tweet it. And this is only the tip of the iceberg! I can’t wait to see what new ideas and updates the creators of Plurk can come up with – the sky’s the limit, really!
I wouldn’t start running through the streets shouting blasphemy about Twitter by now. Clearly Twitter has a very large following, it’s ranking one of the most popular web apps up there with MySpace and Facebook. But I certainly wouldn’t doubt what power Plurk may have in the near future.
If you’re interested in these cool web 2.0 networking micro-blogging gadgets and apps (which I hope if you read this blog you are!), then definitely check out http://www.plurk.com/ and just see what it has to offer. You may be pleasantly surprised by it’s user-friendliness, and may end up dumping Twitter to date a newer, more attractive microblogging platform.
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Reason’s to Choose Plurk;
a. you are a nonconformist
b. you hate baby blue
c. you feel the need to be trendy
d. you need a drop down menu because you are too lazy to type the two lettered word “is” in front of your tweet
e. you made Plurk.
On an upside, the article was well-written.
A spam-less Twitter feed might just be too good to be true. Spam is becoming an increasing problem on Twitter and something has to be done to separate the wheat from the chaff. I have not used Plurk yet but I’ve heard good things about it.
I’ve mainly stayed away from Twitter due to increase in SPAM! Let’s hope they can figure out some way to control this.
‘Changing things to “I hate”, “I wish”, “I hope”’
Calling that a feature is ridiculous, you seem to be forgetting the fact that people can just write that themselves…
Plurk is nice. But I think it is a bit early to call it twitter “rival”.
I had heard of Plurk but haven’t as yet visited it. Will check it out and report back in a couple of weeks.
No. Plurk is awful.
no way plurk is twitter rival
I was an early adopter (and I only say that because I had an account shortly after the site opened) of Plurk and, while it was fun for a little while, it got very old very fast.
While some of the “features (if you can call them that)” are nice, Plurk has one major shortcoming, IMO: A total lack of a public timeline. There used to be one but, in order to keep the system from crapping out (something it did/still does frequently), it was removed it in favor of a lame search. How is anyone supposed to find anyone else on that website anymore? The bottom line is that it isn’t easy and unless you’ve been using the service for a while to build up your little “clique (for want of a better word),” you’re going to do a lot of talking to yourself.
I’ve since completely deleted my account because, in the end, there was 0 ROI for the amount of time spent on there, scrolling through updates and reading (the usually inane) comments. To say Plurk is a “Twitter rival” is a gross misstatement.
There are going to be a lot of websites that “might be better than Twitter.” Like any business that is popular, new companies enter hoping to be better. There is always someone out there trying to think of a way to make a current product or service better. In my opinion Twitter is pretty basic. They are so popular, but it’s mostly because they were the first in the market. Who is going to be the business that comes in and makes it “cooler?”
Plurk or Twitter is not really the point of all this. Twitter serves the SEO in everyone, and Plurk serves those who are in collaborative conversations on a topic.
Plurk is more than a forum and less than a stream of consciousness.
The reason Plurk commands a position as a rival for Twitter is the acceptance is has in the part of Earth where most people live. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/14/microsoft-plurk-ripoff/
Sheryl A. McCoy´s last blog ..Links for 2010-01-26 [del.icio.us]
2008 called, they want their story back
I used Plurk once. Just for a few weeks when it first came out. I left it.
The gradings that existed annoyed me, the sideways timeline was just totally unnatural, the colours and design faults and lack of community and choose-your-own pretext…
This story is years behind.
Nicole´s last blog ..nicolejensen: RT @franksting: found recent article. says plurk will be the next twitter. 2008 called. they want their story back. http://bit.ly/bvnOLQ …
While you have done a great job at writing a convincing review, I can’t quite yet follow your lead. Though the idea is appealing, I just can’t get into reading updates in a horizontal fashion.
And while it’s beyond me how Twitter got so huge with its vast amount of flaws, it is an essential tool these days to get business done.
I tried Plurk briefly but couldn’t find time to use it regularly. My uses for twitter are both for personal and business. I actually like the Plurk interface but there seems to be a lot more powerful stuff you can do with a network on Twitter.
Archon Digital´s last blog ..Twitter vs Plurk – Which is Better?