Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

honest ape — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:52:23 -0000

It should be noted that 99% of the time you are using Plurk, you're using your own page. So you won't even see another user's page. Thus, as long as it looks good to you, it's worth it.

That being said, I've seen a LOT of hideous ones. They need a better plurk css guide, in my opinion. Those of us who know CSS can work wonders, though, completely redesigning almost everything about the page. It's really a great benefit.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

ethnicomm — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:11:33 -0000

Jane - there is s way to generate legitimate buzz but it is far easier to be controversial. That is why more people know who Britney Spears is than Ben Bernanke or Henry Paulson - even though those guys can have a profound impact on your life whereas Ms. Spears was/is a diversion.

I have my somewhat strong and rather cynical view of how some "A-listers" are using SM for selfish reasons (look at how Digg is skewed by a few "friends"). However, it is probably better discussed on another post - don't want to hijack this one.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

ChaCha Fance — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:43:55 -0000

I hate Plurk.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

WayneSutton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:54:05 -0000

Ok, so this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to print out some of the questions over on plurk and on in the comments and record a video replying back.

Whew!

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Jane Chin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:22:30 -0000

Ethnicomm, I know what you're saying about the strategy behind, but surely there is a way to generate buzz without creating controversy that is simply meant to generate buzz (i.e. buzzing for buzzing's sake).

On one of the recent plurkshops, for example, we were discussing how the behaviors of certain social media "A-listers" were setting back the adoption of social media as a viable business strategy and not just a fly-by-night sales tactic.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Jaheed — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:27:56 -0000

OK. I heard about the post and just got a chance to read it. I agree with the comments about effective design and only suggest that folks really try to connect and help folks out with challenging visuals - Hence social networking.

Finally, during my experiences with "Micro-Blogging" it's all about control. If you're into "mass following" for the sake of having a high karma count or high number of followers then you will be subjected to mess i.e., sex, shameless plugs. So I suggest exercise control. Only follow folks of like thinking heck Twitter has plenty of spammers and I gets "NONE".

Just a thought.

-Jaheed.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

ethnicomm — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:37:22 -0000

I think people are failing to understand the brilliant strategy behind this post. It is creating controversy, generating hits, engaging people to comment (like myself) and further exposing the brand called Wayne Sutton. Kudos to the man!

Statements like "if you follow me on plurk, you know I'm one to post, good morning and good night all the time so I know and can validate on the conversations and the Plurk community" are just fodder for further conversation. Anyone that uses Plurk knows you can "know...validate conversations" without prefacing it with a greeting. But hey, this creates dialogue and what's wrong with that?

Again, brilliant strategy on Wayne's part. Congratulations Wayne on a well executed post that is achieving your objectives. It's no wonder that you have 5000+ friends/followers - you are doing something that people value otherwise they would not connect. :) I honestly don't see what the fuss is about.

BTW what do you think of my Plurk background? ;) http://www.plurk.com/user/e...

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

KDFrawg — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:33:41 -0000

Twitter is for announcements. Plurk is for conversations.
-- Michael W. Jones, 2008

Period.

If all you want to do is announce, Twitter is a good place for ya. Feel free to stay.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

WayneSutton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:13:19 -0000

Greg, I wouldn't say the post is negative but it's a question to get your feedback to see if you think Plurk is the MySpace of Micro-blogging. Iâ€™ll admit that the MySpace reference may have been a poor choice of words. At least I know how most people feel about MySpace now. :)

Yes I do plurk a lot; therefore you know I'm not coming from an outsiderâ€™s perspective on the plurk community and conversations but from someone who actually uses the site.

@SonnyGill so true Plurk, just like twitter, it's how you use it, what conversations you create and take part in.

Iâ€™ve been apart of some 60 plus in-depth responses on one plurk topic such as, online advertising, marketing, TV shows, and social media and I appreciate the feedback I get from the plurk community but with some of the general conversations is why some people tend not to use plurk at all.

Its interesting people are posting about what seems like a negative comparison and not the new features that Plurk announced and what direction you see Plurk moving towards in the future.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Greg Hollingsworth — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:03:29 -0000

Good god I hope Plurk isn't the MySpace of "Micro-blogging", which I personally find to be a woefully inadequate way to describe Twitter, Plurk, identi.ca, etc...

I have to admit I was surprised by the ambient negativity of the column, especially coming from someone who plurks more than anyone I've ever seen. It is no secret that I am not a fan of Plurk tying useability to Karma (which I see as little more than a way for them to identify their "power users") but people can do whatever they want, I don't have to see it.

Personally, I'm still on the twitter/plurk fence using ping.fm to update both a lot of the time. But I see in plurk the potential to become what Twitter can no longer effectively be, a place for conversation with a group of folks you get to choose. On twitter you can choose who's in your stream, but group conversations are nearly impossible, even with summize and quotably.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

AnitaK — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:56:29 -0000

I don't Twitter or use MySpace, so I can't compare them to Plurk. I have fund PLURK to be a lifeline for me. I work from home, as do many of my timelined friends. The "good mornings" and the "good nights" are akin to walking into an office and greeting my coworkers. It perks me up just enough to get started on my work. I have also found the threaded, real time (as opposed to a message board) conversations invaluable and intriguing. I have asked many technical questions and received helpful replies. I don't follow too many sole "lifestreamers" nor self-promoters or spammers as you can pretty quickly figure out who these are. I love the posting of photos and videos to Plurk, which, as I understand, is a unique feature to Plurk. Each day I look forward to the arrival of many of the people in my timeline and when they don't show, I wonder what is going on. There are many conversations that I will continue to follow throughout a day.
Overall, I would say that Plurk suits me, while many other we apps don't.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Sonny Gill — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:03:44 -0000

I see your question the same as people making custom Twitter backgrounds, no one really looks at it. I don't go around to people's profiles, I stay within my timeline for 98% of the time.

Plurk allowing for CSS coding for profile pages doesn't make it a Myspace; Myspace you actually scour people's profiles, it's a bit different here. Whether its Plurk, Twitter, Myspace - there's gonna be profiles/backgrounds that you think are ugly, but that doesn't make the feature ugly.

Plurk is what you make of it. If you want to take part in the 'good mornings' or '' plurks, then go for it. But if you want to utilize it for more than that and an actual conversational tool for Social Media (or not) heads, like a lot of us have with the emergence of Plurkshops and a prominent group of conversationalists, then that's what you'll get.

So, I wouldn't question Plurk's community or conversation, I'd question your's and anyone elses use of the service.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Sundress — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:46:39 -0000

No, the cluttered backgrounds definitely have hurt MySpace.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

artywah — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:34:15 -0000

I have twitter open whenever I'm on a computer using tweetbar for firefox 2. No separate app, no need to go to the web site to use it.

I have a Plurk account. I don't use it. It's inconvenient to go to the site and the way plurks are laid out makes it difficult to follow (especially a busy timeline).

Once a Plurk client is available I might change my mind, I might use Plurk and Twitter... or I might use identi.ca which I also have an account on and don't use.

For now this Facebook using iPhone owner is staying with Twitter. It's easy to access.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

WayneSutton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:10:14 -0000

@Chris and others I'll post a longer explanation later, don't get me wrong as most plurk users know I'm a big fan of Plurk. The comparison of MySpace is really a judgement issue of how you feel about MySpace as the other social network compared to how you feel about facebook. And I'm asking a question is Plurk the MySpace of Micro-blogging, I didn't say it was.

On the backgrounds those two where one of the first two css backgrounds I saw, I didn't know about the flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/group... which has some nice custom backgrounds.

If you follow me on plurk, you know I'm one to post, good morning and good night all the time so I know and can validate on the conversations and the plurk community. The community is fun, personal and at times controversial. Many have said that plurk is better at managing conversations than twitter is.

Plurk has it's place on the micro-blogging community but it's different than twitter, identi.ca and pownce just like myspace is a different community than facebook.

Also in the last paragraph I did state for those of "us", it's interesting that most comments here, are about my dislike for "some" of the first backgrounds I've seen on plurk and not the face that we're happy to see plurk role out some cool new features, an API is coming soon, a desktop app is on the way and we're still looking at what audience/community is growing on Plurk.

You're thoughts on that?

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Chris Prakoso — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:40:14 -0000

Wayne, what's wrong with you man ? Are you doing this just to get publicity for this column you wrote, do really mean what's written in here ? Please do tell us, because I don't understand the two faces.
Have you seen the Themes Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/group... ? If not you should go and check it out. We have some really beautiful design over there, and the good thins is, unlike MySpace (!), we don't ever need to go to their individual profile page.
Comment for Aaron Richard, sure Message Board might be a better way of having threading convos, but usually they are regarding a certain 'problem domain', and you only go there if you have something to ask or question to answer. Let me ask you how often do you check this MB, once a day, once a week, once a month ? Definitely not every minute, right ?
We have conversations appear in Plurk every second !
SMS Gateway ? How many percent of users are really using this feature ? I'm not, and certainly not most of us, why ? Because the cost will make myself bankrupt in a matter of days, that's why.
Wayne, I'm waiting for your explanation.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Jane Chin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:54:38 -0000

I agree with my colleagues Dave, Connie, Amber, Deb and others with the superficial assessment of Plurk solely based on ability to customize appearance and judgment of content depth based on absolutely no data to support these claims.

I, like Connie, have unfollowed people (sorry, you were one of the first I unfollowed) because of the sheer number of 'lifestreaming' that they plurk, because these have not contributed much value to the use of my time on a platform that has been more topic centered than user-centered.

Perhaps that's the rub - the fact that unless what you as a user contribute is valuable, after a while the vacuousness becomes a waste of valuable time-line real estate.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

yeah right — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:40:56 -0000

You write headlines way too adsensie. I don't like that.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Amber Naslund — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:04:35 -0000

"Plurkâ€™s community and conversations still remain a question."

I'm kind of disappointed, Wayne, that you of all people are lumping Plurk into a navel-gazing network when I see more plurks from you than I do responses (including the good mornings, good nights, and lifestream stuff). I respect you and your work, but there are some intensely valuable conversations on Plurk if one only listens. And personally, I don't measure any one of those people's worth to the community by the CSS stuff they do or don't put on their own page. It's awfully shortsighted of you to be judging a book by that cover.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Connie Reece — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:52:58 -0000

Wayne, the only time anyone ever sees the custom CSS page is when they click on a person's profile -- probably when they are deciding whether to add them. I thought GJ's Fail Whale background was hilarious. The animated gators are an eyesore (in my opinion) and if I didn't already know the person, would probably not add them. So maybe the backgrounds provide a service by giving a glimpse inside a user's mind.

What hurt MySpace was not the cluttered backgrounds, but the spam friend requests. Now they're beginning to hurt Twitter. It's become more of a broadcast channel than a place for conversation. BTW, I unfollowed your plurks after one week because they were so frequent they overwhelmed my timeline and were not producing conversations that held my attention.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Scott Schablow — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:51:00 -0000

Wayne, I am disappointed that you of all people are criticizing Plurk. You're one of the most active and visible Plurkers I see. And you know that you look at your own timeline and don't have to be exposed to whatever tackiness others may produce on theirs. I've had far more meaningful conversations her, as in one night when a mother's child had a car wreck and her son who was driving was the only survivor. She needed support and received it. Any of Mack Collier's threads of 150+ comments are rich with insight and information. The list is long. You can't have that kind of extended engagement on Twitter, unless you organize a chat-like Twebinar (that is if Twitter is actually working then. You've lost a few karma points in my book. But, I still respect you and your opinions and look forward to more Plurks from everyone.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

Erika — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:41:53 -0000

I agree with DebinDenver, and many of the previous posters. I also want to add that you get out of Plurk what you put into Plurk...it's way beyond casual greetings and as MichDdot said a "spamfest." Real people have real conversations and are real (or at least that's *my* experience), which is something more than Twitter offers. Allowing people to customize their plurklines isn't going to hurt Plurk one way or another.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

johnrhopkins — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:39:50 -0000

Aaron, while there are a lot of similarities between twitter and plurk, the value of threaded conversations blows twitter away. It creates an environment that fosters collaboration while twitter is a good place to broadcast a message to many and walk away.

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

johnrhopkins — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:36:46 -0000

Not only is Deb righ, but she is RIGHT too!

Re: Is Plurk the MySpace of Microblogging?

johnrhopkins — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:35:46 -0000

Deb is righ. While I still think myspace is the armpit of the universe, and I applaud their efforts to clean it up... Great conversations are happening at plurk and most people will never see your custom page, it is more for you than anyone else.

Who knows, it might force some people to learn more about the wonderful world of CSS.