What is Plurk? Plurk Review

What is Plurk? Plurk Review

Visit Plurk on the web at http://plurk.com/

Plurk: Share Your Life to the World!

Plurk is a free micro-blogging and social networking service that a lot of people, mostly teens and young adults, use to showcase the events making up their lives. It works much like Twitter, but has several features not offered by the latter. Updates on Plurk are referred to as plurks.

Streaming Plurk Wall

Plurk wall with unique horizontally scrolling timeline

History

Launched in 2008, Plurk was designed as a communication medium that balances between social networking and blogging, instant messaging and e-mailing.

According to its developers, Plurk is an abbreviation for ‘people’ and ‘lurk’, a blendword of ‘play’ and ‘work’, an acronym for peace, love, unity, respect, karma, and a verb neologism, much like how Google is now being widely used as a verb.

Why People Use Plurk

• Mini Blogging

With Plurk, users only have to enter a sentence or two with 210 text characters maximum. It’s easier coming up with posts to write since there’s no need to elaborate, unlike when posting typical blogs.

Plurk Mini Blogging

Use the Plurk mini blog to convey your message

• Post about anything

Plurk allows its users to post anything they like. “I’m eating dinner now”, “Cleaning my house”, “Going to school” and such similar updates are very common. Of course, there are also people who publish insights and critical opinions.

Post About Anything At Plurk

You can post whatever is on your mind even short messages

• Add friends and follow people

People also use Plurk to add friends to their Plurk friend list and follow the posts of people they are interested to know more. Whether it’s a neighbor, a celebrity or your long-time crush, Plurk will provide you the opportunity to know what they are currently up to.

Add Friends Follow People At Plurk

It is fast and easy to find, friend and follow others at Plurk

Features

• Public Updates

Share what you have recently been up to, your thoughts on current events, or post a shoutout to your friends and followers! At Plurk, the only thing that will limit you is the 210 text character maximum restriction.

• Photo and Video Uploading

At Plurk, you can share your most beautiful still and motion shots with the people who follow or are friends with you. Media files may be uploaded through YouTube, webcam, and links directly from your computer.

Media Sharing At Plurk

Share images, links, YouTube, photos, webcam and more!

• Real-time updates from other users

Other than sharing to people your thoughts and experiences, you can also get updates about other people at Plurk.

• Qualifiers

Plurk also features qualifiers. These are one-word verbs that represent thoughts. Examples are ‘feels’, ‘loves’ and ‘thinks’. At Plurk, you can post short messages using these qualifiers.

Using Plurk Qualifiers

Use qualifiers on your post to give them more meaning

• Private Messaging

You don’t have to share everything publicly. Plurk also has the private messaging feature which will allow you to directly converse with people without the world reading.

• Group Conversations and Emoticons

Plurk supports closed group conversations and allows users to include emoticons in their posts or messages. Users may even upload their own photos and use these as emoticons.

• Fully Customizable Appearance

Plurk supports total customization of the appearance of your profile and wall. This is accomplished by allowing full access to modify the CSS file which controls how everything looks. This allows for endless personalization and many member take full advantage of this unique feature.

Appearance Customizations At Plurk

At Plurk you can fully customize the appearance of everything!

• Karma and Badges

Plurk has some really creative ways of encouraging users to be more active. One such ploy is the users Karma rating. Based on your plurk activities your Karma rating will go up or down and of course a higher Karma level is better. Another feature is the Plurk badges.

By achieving higher levels of success in different categories, Plurk awards different badges that can then be displayed on your profile. Also, new and different emoticons also become available for inclusion in posts as higher achievements are realized.

Plurk Karma And Badges

Have fun getting more Karma and badges at Plurk!

Site Statistics

According to Alexa Internet, more than 37% of Plurk’s traffic comes from Taiwan. In Taiwan, Plurk has been ranked the 49th most used site and 1,975th worldwide. The website received a lot of online attention after it was featured on the net@night show of the TWiT.tv podcast by Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte.

Conclusion

Plurk is simply another social networking service, but one that is more focused on micro blogging. It gives its users the freedom to express themselves using qualifiers, photos, videos and emoticons. Apart from this freedom to express, it also gives people the opportunity to stay updated about the lifestyles of other people, be it friends, family or relatives.

If you are looking for a micro blogging service that allows for longer posting (Twitter only has 140 text character limit), then Plurk would be the next best service there is. It has features unique to itself and is also widely used all over the world. Another great reason to make use of Plurk is when you are looking to reach other markets outside of the U.S.A. as many of Plurk’s members live abroad.

You are invited to visit or connect to our Plurk page at http://www.plurk.com/impactsocialmedia

Also, if you have any questions or comments about Plurk or if you would like to tell us about your profile or experiences there you are encouraged to post your thoughts right below in the comments section.

Video: Plurk is a site which is mostly like Twitter but employs a much different view of status updates. These updates appear in a horizontal river interface which I have never seen before. Plurk does have an IM/Jabber bot, mobile support, and a nifty Karma system. This Karma system rewards you for using the website and also inviting your friends to join.