Plurk Offers Horizontal Microblogging

Posted on June 2, 2008

You can microblog sideways on a new service called Plurk. As The Inquisitr reports the early adapters are already flocking to the latest microblogging tool. Posts on Plurk (plurks) flow from left to right accross a screen divided into chunks of time. The Inquisitr calls this a "visual timeline."

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 new service also offers emoticons, image and video sharing, direct messaging and group discussion through cliques.

One downside to the new service is that you need to build up karma in order to do many things. There isn't anything wrong with requiring karma for certain tasks but with Plurk it seems you need karma just to complete your bio and it takes a while to get it. Karma is just one way Plurk has set itself up so that people have to use the service before they can use certain features. For example, if you invite ten or more people you can also gain access to some special emoticons. The service has been a little sluggish at times but that's forgiveable since it is new. However, there is no excuse for that headless creature logo. If you are going to use mutants as logos at least provide them with heads.

Plurk isn't much of a threat to Twitter, the leading microblogging service. Twitter provides a much cleaner and easier way to share news and information. With a large number of friends Plurk could quickly become overwhelming. Plurk is well aware of this as you can see by this fairly strict set of plurking guidelines. They suggest you keep friends under 200 in these guidelines. Plurk is more useful for threaded conversations than Twitter. This combined with its unique and quirky attributes mean it will probably develop a solid following over time.

You can follow bloggersblog on Plurk here. If you need an invite you can get automatically by following this link.

Update: You can remove the headless creature from your page by clicking edit next to "My Profile" and then selecting "customize profile." There you will see some creatures with heads. Thanks to @tinythoughts for the tip.