So here I am, decided to give the world of Plurk a try.
Plurk is “A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life, and follow the events of the people that matter to you, in deliciously digestible short messages called plurks”
Plurk is like Twitter but better (or so they say).
The main reason I tried Plurk was because some bloggers say that it can generate traffic to your site. However, I was surprised because that motivation has been smeared by the fun of.. plurking!
An Introduction of Plurk
Back in my teenager days, I was on mIRC, a nice simple program where you can chat with anyone all over the world easily through a public and/or a private channel. Plurk is kinda like a hybrid of mIRC and discussion forum. It’s the second generation of mIRC, I may call it.
In Plurk, once you gain friends (Don’t worry, everyone on Plurk wants to be your friend), you will see all these shouts/threads of your friends on your Plurk’s timeline.
The timeline looks like this:
You'll see this everyday at Plurk
The timeline might be confusing at first, but you’ll get used to it. As you can see on the screenshot, when your friend makes a “post” (they call it “plurk”), it will be displayed on your timeline, depends on the time when the plurk was made.
You can plurk what you are doing at the moment, a question to ask your friends, sharing your new blog post to others, or even saying good night and good morning (you’ll see this very often on your timeline 
).
Plurk also has a Karma point. The more you use Plurk, the more your Karma point will increase. It serves like a rank on Plurk. The higher the better. Having a high karma point will also open a few locked settings on Plurk.
What a weird world of Plurk
I call Plurk a weird virtual world, because:
- Everyone in there is your friend even though you don’t know who they are, what they look like (hey, the photo can be misleading!), and you can never know them all intimately.
- You are itching to reply every plurks available on your timeline. I don’t know why!
- For some strange reasons, plurks of “Good morning” and “Good night” receive the most responses than other Plurks.
What I like about Plurk
- Having more friends, even though they aren’t real, but real enough
- A quick answer to your question, if you already have a lot of friends and influence
- Simply interacting with other people is fun at Plurk, thanks to the AJAX-y intuitive interface.
- Looking your Karma point gets higher each day. It makes you feel to have some sort of achievement in *ahem* life.
- A hug whenever you need one:
- A great time waster lol
What I don’t like about Plurk
- It will take some time before your “friends” actually befriend you. You’ll find that your plurks will get tiny replies until a certain stage. It’s fair I guess. You need to be active first and get to know your friends before they get to know you!
- Once you have more than 20 friends, your timeline will get cluttered. I don’t want to imagine what it will look like once you have 100 friends or more!
- Like above, it’s also hard to keep track of every plurk and its replies once you have lots of friends.
- You can’t tag some plurks as favorites/to be watched. Good luck in scrolling to find whether your favorite plurks have new replies on them or not.
- A great time waster, as said above lol
So is Plurk better than Twitter? You bet.
If you are on Plurk, don’t forget to add me as your friend! My profile is on http://www.plurk.com/user/michaelaulia. If you want to join Plurk, use this link so I’ll know when you sign up and I’ll add you as my friend. See you there and happy plurking 
After you join Plurk, these sites may come in handy:
- A very basic commands of Plurk
- Plurk’s dictionary, tips & tricks
- Plurk’s CSS style/themes (once your Karma gets to 25)
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
i hate their logo. Is this another social networking thingey, with a bit of twitter and a bit of facebook and a bit of Su?
Alfred Saforos last blog post..Then the Alien’s Invaded!
It seems as if another Plurk addict has been born. A nice balanced look at Plurk, well done.
sailors last blog post..Adding Images to our Content
Ehmm…maybe later when I’m not too busy with digg, SU, and twitter :p please tell me if you get traffic boom from plurk
shearyadis last blog post..American Design Awards Summer 2008 semi annual
I registered at Plurk quite some time ago to have my name as the username there… Haven’t been active but this review inspires me to start plurking!
Abhinav Soods last blog post..Inspirit is again a TOP PUBLISHED blog at Blog Engage
imho, definitely snazzier than twitter and much easier to get followers. twitter intro-ed the replies to a thread a tad late i feel. plurk on!
would be nice if plurk had a “search” feature like twitter that allowed you to find people with the same interests
Worth to try
r1ooooos last blog post..5 Players To Watch At Beijing 2008
strange……
Your image on all of your post is change with your pic……??
windras last blog post..Get free domain and 1 year hosting on michael contest
Welcome to Plurk Michael! It’s great to finally see you on and now we can keep in touch together using this fun micro-blogging tool. I’ve been on it since June and met so many interesting people. We have even created a “Plurk clique” where the world’s most active Diggers and Stumble Uponers chat
See you on Plurk!
My Plurk Name: “mr_gadget”
Don’t have time to check this plurk. there are lot of social bookmarking coming up that if we try to have time on these then we run out of time
Haha yeah.. there are just so many of them out there. The 2 most popular ones are Twitter and Plurk now (I think)
@windra: Did you hotlink the image from your site? I put in extra protection to prevent people from stealing my bandwith
Check out this post: Thief! Stop hot-linking my image!
@michael : no, i just Subscribe your site via RSS feed (my google reader) and bammm…all image going weird.
and before that, i just capture your site and upload it to photobucket for my post about your contest.
NO HOTLINK AT ALL…..
OUCH!! That’s bad!!
Wonder why my 100 feed readers never complain or at least let me know about it.
Thanks windra. I think I’ve fixed the problem..would you mind letting me know on the next post update and check it for me please?
PS: Sorry for framing you earlier lol
It’s normal now….thanks 4 your attention.
LOL……I think google reader and digg doing the same thing, use HOTLINK on all site they dig or read. They stealing your bw, not me
windras last blog post..Get free domain and 1 year hosting on michael contest
I never heard about Blurk but it looks interesting. The logo is cute.
I am definitely gonna try this out ^^
It seems fun since Twitter is getting really boring
where did the name plurk come from, sound weird for me
Michael, this is a balanced review of plurk. I also got on plurk, not so long ago and found it to be rather addictive.
I have not been monitoring the traffic but it has become a secondary issue.
I just joined PLURK and so far I’m enjoying it. I like it more than twitter.
Nice review about plurk…i’ll be adding you as my friend : )
@jeflin: well the traffic is not much unless you have thousands of friends
I guess think of it as another time killing thing to do when you are bored!
Oh man – there’s just more and more of these time wasters, hey?
They’re just so addicting, you can spend all day on them! But, they are fun to use, and if I have time, I’ll definitely try them out.
Plurk – heh he! Well, the names of these things are certainly getting better and better, that’s for sure! I’ve never actually tried Twitter, but seeing as everyone seems to like this better, I’ll be sure to give it a try!