And Plurk is better than Twitter … how? Clone wars continue |
I can’t do what with my own name until I earn 40 Karma points?
This has to be among the most idiotic uses of karma point motivation I’ve seen on the internet, but I’ll get back to that.
If you’ve been Rip Van Winkle the last year, let me update you on the status of the tech web: the Attack of the Clone Wars are still upon us. And trust me it’s about as interesting as the Star Wars flick sharing the same name. I’ve been looking into and spending more time in other areas looking for, and at times finding, inspiration and excitement. More on that by separate post.
On the chat/conversation/social front, Pownce and to a much lesser extent Jaiku (acquired by Google last year) used to be the hip, cool services to visit when Twitter was down. Both those services are getting a lot less buzz, at least from the people I’m following. FriendFeed is continuing to gain traction as it offers something a little different than the others: a master aggregator of your activity stream. At least the activity you are exposing through FriendFeed, anyway. FriendFeed has added more features to share new content and create conversations around links like their quasi-chatroom called simply, rooms. I haven’t dipped a toe in there yet, but am open to suggestions for good rooms to join.
I’ve also been reading some praise being left at the welcome mat of Plurk. This morning I went and registered and what’s the first thing I see when I hit the form submit button?
The expression on Mr. T’s face is priceless. I couldn’t help but smile. Resisted the urge to add the caption: “Hey suckah, if you think Plurk is going to beat out Twitter I’ll bust you up.”
I’m a fan of the A-Team and all but how is this any positive sign of the future for Plurk when with a pinprick amount of the traffic and users that Twitter has currently they are having downtime and error screens during registration? I know, it’s a new service and we’re supposed to be patient, give the new kids a break. Label this premature extrapolation but I’m weary of cutting any of these wannabe clone services slack.
I should point out that despite the error screen above, it appears like my registration actually worked. I was using Firefox 2.0.0.14 in case any of the Plurk devs are lurking and curious. No matter, I doubt seriously it was a browser issue.
To me this illustrates the biggest problem with too many Web 2.0 services these days. Are we truly analyzing if using these clones are a lateral or downward move over more popular, similar services? My excitement level for a lot of these ‘new’ services has waned considerably in 2008 because I don’t see much in frequently writing posts like this one asking what is new here? What’s different, what’s fresh? Plurk has a somewhat interesting post that shows messages on a different style timeline. Woohoo, somebody get Murdock out of the mental ward. And karma points to encourage more activity at a site are a breakthrough? Not.
No loyalty for web services
I haven’t seen anything that exciting and different with Pownce and Jaiku versus Twitter. Sure, there are a few features that differ between them but by far the most useful component of the three is the number of people using the service (Twitter). Whatever service has the crowd in a service geared around social interaction, has the lion’s share of eyeballs and mindshare. Wrong or right, like it or lump it, that’s the way it is. Due to sheer numbers MySpace and Facebook remain leaders in their field, despite the attempts to nip their ankles by clones.
Today, what’s the #1 complaint about Twitter? It goes down too much. Any service — new, old, experienced, inexperienced, in beta, etc — has no breaks in this department. I don’t care if it’s FREE now, or ad-supported or whatever, because we all know it won’t be free forever. It’s surprising Twitter hasn’t busted out a monetization strategy by now, maybe the reality is what they keep saying: they don’t have one. The Twitter crew doesn’t strike me as being the most organized team. They just got a $15 million cash infusion, so maybe they’ll be able upgrade the backend. They say they’re trying.
I’m in Plurk now (lol, big deal) as of June 6, 2008. Feel free to add me as your friend/follower/fellow virtual drifter and I’ll try and return in kind. Name squatter more likely, as I was in Twitter originally.
Forgive me for going Lemming on this one because I’m not seeing what makes Plurk special. And the whole karma points motivation thing I started this post with is lame when somebody — including a freaking bot — can setup a competing Twitter account (assuming it’s not down) and have access to all that services benefits instantly. No hoop jumping. No spamming your friends “in real time” to sign up.
You have the comment space below, your own blog (trackback in), or use another service to show me the way; I’m not only listening here. If a miracle happens and Plurk somehow becomes more popular and stable than Twitter, I’ll use the service more. Ain’t web loyalty a peach?
Although I’d put your money on Mr. T making a comeback with a ‘new’ version of the A-Team happening first.
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There are a lot of similarities between Twitter and Plurk and I wouldn’t claim that Plurk solves some kind of unmet problem or demand, but I do think that there are some subtle differences. Most notably is the more social nature of Plurk. Because they’ve created a timeline where anyone can post their thoughts, it gives regular users an opportunity to connect to a larger audience, even if it’s just for an instant. This helps you find and meet interesting people who you wouldn’t have known otherwise. With Twitter, you need to build up a hefty friend list before you start seeing the same level of interaction. With all of these services, I try not to take them too seriously and just have fun. Once you start thinking about how they are going to monetize it or focus on trying to leverage the services for your brand, it stops being entertaining and lighthearted. At some point Twitter will need to make money, but I’m happy to make that their problem and just deal with the outages why they figure out how to grow their site.
Comment by Davis Freeberg — June 6, 2008 @ 6:34 am PST
Maybe I’m looking at these services a bit jaded, Davis, because I see them as mostly alternative communication tools. Not unlike the telephone or this comment section. They are ways to communicate online and find and explore new/different/fresh things. Stupid bells and whistles like karma points get in the way because they force interaction instead of making it occur naturally or even spontaneously (which spontaneity is a strength of these type services). It’s like somebody saying: “hey give me a call, wait, you can only call me once you call 100 other people.” That’s not much incentive to interact.
Communication tools should make communication and interaction easier, not harder. As I say that, the CAPTCHA in the comment section here kind of impedes that (but it goes away after a few comments are made), but unfortunately is necessary to keep the spammers at bay. I’d rather use something else as a hurdle but haven’t found anything that works as well.
Comment by TDavid — June 6, 2008 @ 6:44 am PST
Hey and thank you for being my first Plurk friend, Davis
Woohoo, I’m not on the island alone any more! And I didn’t have to spam you or anything for it. Karma++;
Comment by TDavid — June 6, 2008 @ 6:50 am PST
I never used Twitter, so Plurk is a whole new world to me-a very silly and pretty much pointless one, but still kind of fun. I just started and don’t know how long I stick with it.
Comment by Descartes — June 24, 2008 @ 2:27 pm PST