We've got 479 people subscribed to ROCKFUSE,
who know that we don't dissapoint our readers!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, in the beginning there was darkness, then came Twitter. It was the next big thing that everyone was talking about and was quite an addiction to the scores of people who were not eating, breathing, sleeping and even dreaming without posting on Twitter. And then, things started to get a bit ugly as the outages on Twitter, kept the whole Twitter community in dark for too long. That was till there was a new bird on the block – Plurk!
Plurk came at the right time with the right formula. All the people who had it with the dysfunctional Twitter civilization found a new promised land on Plurk. They planted their flag there and had been enjoying the unexhausted-yet servers of Plurk.
So, you all will agree that, in a nutshell, that’s what happened. Whatever said and done, most of us were getting weary about the outages in Twitter and we were a bit dependent on it for our social interactions. When Twitter let us down too many times for too long, the best option was to call it quits for most of us.
By reading some reviews of Plurk, we bloggers tend to have the impression that Plurk indeed has the power to beat Twitter. And by comparing the two, most of the reviews, put Plurk on a higher level than Twitter. But if I had to do a review on it, I wouldn’t necessarily put Plurk on a higher level. Why? While certainly giving kudos to Plurk for their most innovative approach, I do feel that Plurk and Twitter tend to have two different formulae.
To make a long story short, there will always be people who have established themselves on Twitter and will find it hard to do the same thing on Plurk anytime soon. For that sole reason, they will tend to hang around Twitter much more than they would like to.
Secondly, and most importantly, there will be a bunch of users who will always appreciate the simplicity that Twitter offers. What we shouldn’t forget is that simplicity of Twitter was one of the factors largely attributed to it’s long term success. It’s not that the people behind Twitter didn’t want to add new features – it’s just that the Twitter framework doesn’t allow much to be done without actually hurting it’s simplicity, which many love – subconsciously.
So, there lies the big question – Can Plurk beat Twitter at it’s own game? If the current trends continue, yes! Not necessarily because Plurk is better or anything – but because, when Twitter goes down, they need a new Twitter., and that seems to be Plurk.
I love Plurk and I have been an active user since it came out. But I didn’t let go of Twitter as a result. I still love the idea of going to a movie store and sending a text message to my Twitter account to ask my followers what’s the latest DVD release that they would recommend. Plurk can do that for me in the most efficient way imaginable, only that it’s a bit too complex for simple SMS’s to handle.
But I do agree. Plurk has got some serious potential. Let’s hope that it doesn’t keep us in the dark like Twitter did though ironically, at this time the post is being written, it says “Plurk is currently under routine maintenance, We apologize for the inconvenience”.
By the way, if you’re on Twitter or Plurk, let’s be friends!
I think Plurk can be bigger than Twitter but it has a long way to go.
I find it strange that plurk is even compared to Twitter. But that’s subjective I guess. These are two very different services going in two very different directions.
All valid points. The most valid of them being the one about the simplicity of twitter.
Well, I can’t speak for either side on that. The wind can blow either way.
Thanks vimoh. Indeed! Maybe it’s the “Where are you now” concept of the two systems.
So depressed to here that something better than twitter is around. I simply revere Twitter. But it’s frequent outages were getting pretty snaggy. you’re right there.
On recommendation by your review will try out plurk.
Thanks.