Twitter v. Plurk

This has been an issue that I’ve been contemplating recently. Twitter and Plurk are two platforms that serve the same purpose, to micro-blog. They’re both allow for small messages (140 characters), to which are responded by your friends/readers/followers. It’s not that aspect that makes them different, it’s that Twitter’s Tweets are like “people holding up signs on the street,” an impersonal form of communication (so stated by Matthew Hughes; Plurk’s Plurks are a home of conversation between your friends and yourself.

I agree with Matthew on his view, 100%. The only issue I have is the accesibility of Plurk. With Twitter, you can tweet from text, email, API programs, and the web interface (taylored to both mobile browsing and full browsing). With Plurk, it’s all of the afformentioned minus text and email. They still have a mobile interface, but I think that the mobile internet is still crippled to an extent, thus preffering other means of access. Plurk has an API out as Twitter does, but the API release is unofficial, and possibly subject to error or malfunction.

Overall, I do enjoy the more personal experience that I recieve while on Plurk; people actually read your plurks, and respond. It’s almost like a chatroom, but without the trashyness. Also, it seems like Twitter is for the internet elite (Youtubers, CNET editors, presidents from huge corporations), and not so much taylored to the smaller population of part-time bloggers and internet lurkers. It’s like myspace for the popular kids, without the shitty mirror pictures, or two BFF’s posing in a picture with pursed lips and way too much fucking makeup. (Major plus).

~ by jbell2 on April 11, 2009.