Here is one website that has a better chance of capitalizing on Twitter‘s downtimes and troubles. Plurk lets you publish and share your thoughts in a Twitter like style.
And it gets the job done in style! It’s got a timeline feature, which surely beats the hell out of Twitter and is one of the things that are bound to give Twitter competition once Plurk gets popular enough.
As from the screen shot above ( My Plurk Page ), the page is divided into several parts. The top half is the timeline on which is arranges you Plurks along with your display picture. You can click on any Plurk their to read the responses or to comment on that Plurk.
Below that is where you enter you Plurks. It looks a lot like Twitter but that’s where Plurk eats Twitter for lunch. When you click on the orange "is", it shows you a drop down list of various other options like shares, loves, hates in different colors which add a really nice touch to sharing your thoughts.
Sometimes you don’t want to share you Plurk with everyone but only with some selected people. Plurk also solves this problem through Plurk privacy and options. You can chose to share your Plurk with the whole world as well which is the default option. You can also disable comments for your Plurks if you want.
Still not impressed? Remember how you have to go through the trouble of snipping your URL to share pictures or videos? Twitter makes you do it the hard way. But Plurk helps you! ( Although not for links to websites! ) It shows the thumbnails of the Youtube video you insert in your Plurk. Same goes for images.
Another thing on Plurk is Karma. According to the website:
Every plurker has his/her own karma value. It is recalculated every day and falls within these intervals:
- 0.00 to 21.00: You are in the state of creation
- 21.00 to 41.00: You are in the state of maintenance
- 41.00 to 61.00: You are enlightened
- 61.00 to 81.00: You are so close to Plurk Nirvana
- 81.00 to 100.00: You have reached Plurk Nirvana!
Your karma score is directly influenced by your and your friends Plurk activity. The more active you are, the more points you’ll get. Using various features of Plurk such as instant messaging or uploading a profile image will also help.
The interface of Plurk is very simple and even though it has more options then Twitter, it doesn’t make you go through any learning curve once you migrate from Twitter. When you log in for the first time, it takes you trough a short 5 step introduction of the features which makes for a very nice welcome for new users. The timeline and background colors can be changed for a number of given options to suit your mood and style. Also, higher Karma unlocks some smileys which aren’t available to other users.
Plus the service is speedy and I haven’t noticed any problem with it so far while reviewing it.
Verdict:
If microblogging is your cup of tea, you can’t go wrong with Plurk. You wont get notifications on your cell phone like Twitter, but then again we don’t get that from Twitter too mostly because of it’s problems. Give Plurk a try and you wont need to tweet again!
Found this on Digg, Plurk needs to give us more! But it is better than twitter. THe timeline is cool
[Reply]