How to Plurk

I’ll keep updating this as I find new things!

All that's fit to plurk! - Plurk.com
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Peat has already mentioned his newfound love of Plurk, a quirky new social networking site that I’ve been playing with. Now that Leo Laporte has endorsed it, they’ve experienced their first Twitter-style growth!

What I like most about Plurk is that it takes the great feeling of chatter you get in a lively IRC channel, and combines it with awesome threading – something that Twitter users have complained about for a long time. Hash-tagging has solved some of the problem, but I have to say that I enjoy a return to real threading.

So far, using plurk is immersive, silly and very fun. The service is still young (periodic 500 errors!), and there are a couple UI issues (too much clicking!). But, using it last night was fast and easy. There’s a definite difference between Plurk and Twitter in terms of attention-demand. I liked @brampitoyo’s plurk about it being “high-maintenance.” I totally agree, but it encourages for short bursts of creative conversation. There’s an intense, good intimacy created with the threads that I don’t see as often with Twitter.

In the first 24-hours, here are a few tips I’ve gleaned for getting the most out of plurk:

  • Check out the Mobile edition: http://www.plurk.com/m
  • Use Plurk with IM: Go to My Account, and then Instant Messaging to set up Plurk with your favorite IM client
  • Follow ‘amix‘ for updates on changes to Plurk’s interface
  • Create ‘cliques’ to only share your plurks with certain people. Then choose that clique when posting your plurk. Create a clique by going to ‘My Friends’, and then the Cliques tab. If you want me to add you to my #postgresql clique, let me know!
  • Find people by their Twitter handle, by just typing it in at http://www.plurk.com/users/[handle]
  • Respond to other’s plurks in the thread! You can do this on your main timeline page by clicking on the plurk, or you can go to the webpage for each plurk and submit a comment there — example: http://www.plurk.com/p/3bu0
  • Check out the Plurk karma trends: plurk.ryanlim.com
  • Read the Plurk FAQ: http://www.plurk.com/faq
  • Check out ryanlim’s FAQ: http://plurk.ryanlim.com/help/index.php (includes a comprehensive emoticon dictionary :D)
  • Got a suggestion for Plurk? Contact them!
  • Of course, there’s already a Plurktionary!
  • A Share On Plurk bookmarklet

A few features I wish Plurk had:

  • A way to ‘favorite’ plurks I enjoy
  • A way to ‘pin’ plurks on higher my timeline to give them more visual priority when they are updated
  • A way to give feedback directly to Plurk.com through the plurk interface — why can’t I just plurk @plurk or @feedback to let them know what I think?
  • More ways to post between services – although @shiny already has a drupal-powered twitter/plurk gateway!

Have fun, and feel free to Plurk me!