So Twitter is widely accepted as an amazing feat of technology, right? Okay, well maybe not amazing, but it was one of a kind, yeah? Well, you know what I mean. Anyway, whenever these amazing – or maybe not – feats of technology come around, it isn't long before others will try and outdo the first, making their applications more wacky and wonderful. Or at least, that's the idea.

Pownce tried it, and if I'm honest, I didn't really see many improvements that gave Pownce the edge over Twitter (except maybe being able to post different types of updates). Twitter was still in the lead (kind of). Twitter 'Fail Whale' Until now? Plurk has arisen from the depths of… well, uh… Plurkland (yeah it's like Twitter and Pownce; made by some unknown company).

Then the inevitable happened: Twitter finally overflowed and started throwing the "fail whale" at people, so a lot of users "began to look for a new playground" (yes, I stole that last quote from Veribatim). On one of the few chances I had to check the public timeline of Twitter, I found a link to Ping.fm, which had a list of social networking applications, amongst them was Plurk. Naturally I placed my cursor over the link and clicked the left mouse button, funnily enough I landed straight on the Plurk homepage.

Plurk Getting Started Guide

I have a fetish for creating accounts on things anyway, so I created one just to see what it was about, I didn't even read the about page. However, that would have been a complete waste of time if I had, because the first thing that happens when you sign in is you are greeted with a getting started guide that tells you about all the important elements of your new Plurk page.

Once I got over the general sexiness of the whole experience I began Plurking and soon realised that I needed some friends in order to get any sort of feedback from anything I Plurked (there doesn't seem to be a public timeline like Twitter, which could be a good thing). I went around adding a few people I didn't know and this increased the amount of responses I received and the amount of Plurks that I could reply to (as they were in my timeline).

Being able to reply to Plurks, just like you could in Pownce is a very good feature. Pownce attempted it, but there was way too much page reloading involved. With Plurk all your friends' Plurks are added to your timeline, at the top of your Plurk page. Each Plurk is collapsed so that only a few words are displayed, you can then click on a Plurk to see the rest of the story and respond with a witty comment. These responses are threaded to the original Plurk, and are counted as Plurk Responses rather than Plurk Updates. Which is where Twitter went wrong; the Twitter engine counted your replies as updates to the main question "what are you doing?", when in fact they aren't.

Obviously, the more friends you have, the more responses and publicity you are likely to get. You can then treat it like your very own blog, without all the hassle of encouraging readers to post comments and finding readers in the first place. Though the posts are considerably smaller (140 characters maximum), they are a lot easier to digest and are more likely to provoke comments and discussion.

Noun. plurk (plüer-kh) – A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life in deliciously digestible chunks. Low in fat, 5 calories per serving, yet chock full of goodness.

Verb. plurk (plüer-kh) – To chronicle the events of your always on, action-packed, storybook, semi-charmed kinda life.

We've taken the time, the complexity, and the deep introspection required out of blogging.

This isn't Billy Q. Poindexter's blog, no, no. Instead, Plurk is an easy way to chronicle and share the things you do, the way you feel, and all the other things in between that make up your life, with the people close to you. It's instant gratification, instant self-indulgence, instant celebrity, instantly YOU. Share your life stream, live your life… Plurk!

Citation: <http://www.plurk.com/aboutUs>

As you can see from that, the owners are a lot more laid back and informal, which makes it even more fun, especially when reading the Plurk blog. Anyway, that is enough rambling for one blog post. Will Plurk be the new Twitter? Join me on Plurk!