What Do You Think About Plurk?

Plurk is the latest in a long line of potential Twitter alternatives, but it kind of isn’t

OK, yes, you can say what you are doing, read what others are doing, and have conversations, but after that the similarities end. To be quite honest, it’s pretty, well, weird.

Individual messages appear on a timeline, and you scroll left and right to go forward and back in time.

As replies appear, the reply count next to a message goes up and turns read. For the first time user it is all very confusing.

404 unread - chrisgarrett - Plurk.com

As you participate in the site your “Karma” goes up, which is a motivation for the more competitive users, although I am not sure outside bragging rights if there is much benefit from a high score

Check it out.

Had it not been for Twitters much-discussed downtime I might never have tried it. Still taking me some getting used to.

What do you think? Twitter killer or will you pass? Please share in the comments …

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Web 2.0

Comments

6 Responses to “What Do You Think About Plurk?”

  1. Kim Woodbridge on June 12th, 2008 2:01 pm

    I will not be using it. I created an account but it has never worked properly for me and I have yet to see anything in the timeline. And I did try in Firefox and IE in case it was a browser issue. It’s just as well – I really like twitter and don’t have time to keep up with another service.

  2. Tony Rose on June 12th, 2008 4:22 pm

    Pass here. I am already committed to Twitter and don’t have time for another microblog. I’m already on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and try to blog here and there. Not enough hours in the day anymore. So I’m with Kim.

  3. Geek in Heels on June 12th, 2008 4:37 pm

    I too, started using Plurk because of Twitter’s downtime. The interface took some getting used to, but now I’m using both equally. I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to follow conversations on Plurk than on Twitter…I just wish Plurk had SMS support!

  4. Tony Rose on June 12th, 2008 4:40 pm

    @ Geek – I definitely need SMS support. You’d think with the amount of followers on Twitter that they would have enough server support. I get annoyed with the “too many tweets” or “we’ll be back in an hour” messages.

  5. Rajeev Edmonds on June 15th, 2008 2:10 pm

    I created an account on plurk, but won’t use it. The interface is confusing for me.

  6. Oli from the-iBlog on June 28th, 2008 1:15 am

    The problem with Plurk is its lack of users. The only thing that can stop Twitter being the dominant force is its own reliability issues. Perhaps if these continue and people move over the Plurk I’ll give it more time. Until then it’s a non-starter for me.

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