When Plurk was launched several months ago, it attracted a lot of attention and a healthy amount of new users. A big part of Plurk’s appeal is/was the user interface that displays posts within a timeline, and responses under each post.
After a promising start, however, Plurk seemed to fade into the microblogging background. Of course, Plurk isn’t alone is failing to resonate with many users within a market where Twitter continues to dominates.
Plurk, however, is still around and battling for attention. Case in point is a new, fresher and more appealing home page. Once you log in, Plurk still looks like Plurk but the home page is a step in the right direction.
4 Comments
just because plurk had a new overhaul of it's homepage doesn't mean that it's trying to win back users (who might have left, as u implied) or new users. i think plurk and twitter have different purposes, different uses, different ways of use, and also caters to different types of crowds and conversations.
on plurk, things are so much more livelier and instant, due to the threaded conversations – it almost seems like real-time chat. on twitter, tracking conversations is quite the hell.
i use both twitter (well, used, in this case) and plurk. i moved to plurk because the conversations are kept within a thread there, making it easier for reference. that said, on plurk, it's hard to look for past threads, and i believe plurk is trying to index and improve on the search function that it currently has.
plurk caters to a more spontaneous and interactive crowd, i feel. in my circle of 172 users (mainly in singapore, with a smattering of people from USA and other parts of asia, like malaysia or philippines), we are constantly on plurk, and we use it to get information, to chat, to rant, to share interesting things that we do, and to discuss issues. anything goes.
within seconds of posting a plurk, u can get replies, and it's so instant that really makes it much more interesting. i think that's something that twitter can never match up to.. i'd say the threaded conversations really gives plurk its pull-factor towards the social media crowd. tht said, the instant replies also give rise to a lot of "noise", which is quite absent in twitter.
but on twitter, i suppose u can get a whole range of different topics of conversations that are perhaps, more serious. it really depends on preference, and i don't think plurk is losing it's popularity.
this article is so totally skewed, imho.
jus as the writer of this article is a big fan of twitter, i here, am a big fan of plurk. it all boils down to personal preference.
i just had another thought. Plurk is more community-based, and it's much easier to make friends on Plurk. with Twitter, u can reach a wider audience, and anyone can just @ reply you and you'll be able to track that.
To be fair, certain sites have specific geographical appeal. MySpace in US & Europe, Facebook & Friendster in Asia, etc. Twitter is very big in the US, Plurk is predominant in Asia.
Mark's world view is prob more US centric. To think that the world revolves around Plurk is a little myopic. To think that Twitter has achieved worldwide dominance is only seeing one side of the picture. I think Mark has given Plurk a fair shake… and perhaps i would advice that he try Plurk for a longer period to determine its usefulness.
I personally prefer Plurk's threaded-ness and ability to track responses. Twitter is a little too much of a monologue for me. But it does have its appeal. The Plurk timeline is a nice innovation but its appeal wears thin after a while. I can understand why Twitters like the one track thread, cos i prefer Plurk Mobile to the desktop version.
To each his own, really. Be fair, everyone.
To be honest, geographic usage is something that I've haven't focused on much so I'm probably guilty of being North American-centric (I'm Canadian!). It's good perspective so thanks for that.
In some ways, Plurk could be like Friendster, which never took off in North America but has done well in Asia, or Orkut, which has thrived in South America.