Plurk is a newish microblogging service that is spreading like wildfire through the first adopter community today.
According to Plurk, the service 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.” At first glance, I’d call it Twitter with a visual timeline.
Plurk has an emphasis on actions as opposed to clean slate message, and each user is offered there number plus a drop down list with actions such as is, thinking, was, asks and similar. Each “plurk” is posted to a visual timeline that includes drop down threads for replies. The service also offers “cliques” for plurk distribution and various privacy options.
The one definite thing I can say about the service is that visually it’s different, and that can be read in both a positive and negative way. The layout shakes up the staid microblogging format Twitter popularized, and yet it may take some getting use to as I’m not a huge fan so far. The service is already experiencing serious growth pains with features being disabled, including custom avatars and importing friends (least the gmail import didn’t work for me). Still, early days and people who are willing to explore new ideas are always worthy of at least some support. You can add me as a friend on Plurk here and it’s worth a look.
