socialmedian: Twitter vs Plurk

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Twitter vs Plurk

Source: MEDIAdeluge

Jun 02, 2008

Summary

With all the downtime problems Twitter has been experiencing lately, it could be just a matter of time before there is a mass exodus to another service. My guess is it wouldn’t take much to trigger the exodus — at least among the early-adopting tech crowd.

Because the microblogging space is so nascent, a departure of even a few of the key tweeters like @leolaporte, @JasonCalacanis @kevinrose, and @Scobleizer, could be disastrous for Twitter and effective stall the rocketsled that has been twitter of late.

Some thought FriendFeed would be the Twitter killer, but FriendFeed is different from Twitter. It serves a different purpose. See my post on FriendFeed vs Twitter.

A new service called Plurk, however, could be the ship frustrated tweeters jump to — not to mention, highly followed Twitterers like Leo Laporte and Veronica Belmont invited their Twitter followers to join them on Plurk. Don’t be surprised to see a huge surge in Plurk’s traffic in the coming days.

Plurk is a slick new microblogging platform. VentureBeat calls it Twitter meets FriendFeed.

It doe

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Comments (18)

Adamant1988,

Jun 02, 2008

I've been testing plurk out and highly enjoying the experience. Plurk lacks in the extensibility of twitter, but I suspect that's something that can be worked around.

Techn0tic,

Jun 02, 2008

I'm not convinced by Plurk as yet, FriendFeed seems to be the more natural (or at least more established) alternative but seeing as both Jaiku and Pownce have been making headway in this space, Plurk has a lot of competing to do and I noticed the service stuttering a bit today with all of the new signups.

Having said all of that, Twitter continues to be hugely popular and even despite their best efforts, even Twitter themselves don't seem to be able to force a mass exodus to other services (except when they need somewhere to complain about Twitter being down)

Smc2911,

Jun 02, 2008

I signed up last night and further twitter problems (the api seemed to be crippled and so twhirl wasn't working) meant I spent quite a bit of time plurking. I liked it!

Karen,

Jun 03, 2008

I've found plurk interesting but still find twitter most compelling.

Kcarruthers,

Jun 03, 2008

plurk is ok but I still prefer the way the messages stream past you in twitter

Javurek,

Jun 03, 2008

Timeline idea is great, but I hope Twitter will sort out its problems. imho Plurk is just a fad, but timeline interface is here to stay.

Adityakelkar2000,

Jun 03, 2008

Really liked the interface. haven't used it though.

Moz Tom,

Jun 03, 2008

Plurk has no API, @Smc2911, and I think that we can agree that means it is very useless. They also do not support comments on their blog posts (twitter does), and don't link to their get satisfaction page (twitter does).

I don't think Plurk's gonna last, it is very reminiscent of "xanga", and from the random selection of users on the front page, many underage, I think that's the only crowd it's going to appeal to.

Greghollingsworth,

Jun 03, 2008

Seriously? YOu're talking about a service that won't render it's timeline in Firefox? As Moz Tom says there is no API, which means that in order to use it I have to run Firefox (for everything else) and IE for Plurk. Not gonna happen.

Cosmichog,

Jun 03, 2008

Good overview of twitter and plurk here, at www.jonbishop.org
Check it out. (Jon's a friend of mine who has a good working knowledge of both).

Geek Mommy,

Jun 03, 2008

Plurk is really good for conversations - but not really good for microblogging. The formats are different. While the mobile site (http://www.plurk.com/m/) is really slick and great from a smartphone browser, it's still a different experience than Twitter.

Since Robert Scoble has already declared that it holds no allure for him, and Kevin Rose has said that the Kevin Rose on plurk is not him - I suspect it won't prove a Twitter-killer. But that doesn't mean something else won't.

Snoop Bloggy Blog,

Jun 03, 2008

I usually use Twitter and Pownce but they both give me headaches. I mess around with Plurk.

Jasongoldberg,

Jun 03, 2008

I'll be a slow mover off twitter. I'd rather root for them to get their act together than rush to the next cute kid on the block.

Christiananderson,

Jun 04, 2008

Plurk won't kill Twitter for several reasons:

plurk does not have open APIs
Plurk does not have a desktop app
plurk does not lend itself to mobile updates
plurk does not have the community
plurk does not allow links in profiles
plurk does not support porting contacts from Twitter
plurk is pissing off robert scoble

This could all change, but it would have to happen soon to leverage current interest.

Jimwu,

Jun 04, 2008

What about Pownce?

Ryangraves,

Jun 04, 2008

Agreed, why haven't people jumped to Pownce very quickly.

M Barger,

Jun 04, 2008

LAME-O! Plurk has decided to forbid people and also highly recommend against the things I find very helpful about Twitter! Twitter does have problems, but one of the things I like about it, is it's ability to connect me with like-minded (ie techie) people. Plurk has no search feature to help me connect, and advises "Only add people who are your good buddies. Don't add people you met for 3 minutes at a party." Dudes! Your missing the point!

Nishith,

Jun 04, 2008

Interesting UI. I'm game to trying new social apps. The problem though is that they don't give me any instant gratification unless I patiently hang out over there and create my friends' network. Hope the recent initiatives like friend connect etc goes mainstream soon.