Blogging, tweeting and plurking
I admit freely I'm an 'opt in' kinda guy. If theres a new service on the web where I get to output all my personal thoughts and feelings to the world at large and all they want in return is my name, email address and custom? I'm in every time :)
Years back the world started blogging. When I was younger I built and ran a small community site that let me and my mates post stories, photos and then comment on said stories and photos. Sounds like a blog...because it pretty much was. TypePad, Wordpress, Blogger etc quickly turned up and owned this space, providing people the ability to install and run (on their own domain or not) their own blogs, inviting commentary and helping to shepherd in and encourage the micro community or blogosphere. Some of these are standalone websites like our mate Raj over at I Don't Quite Know who uses WordPress as a platform on his own domain, or something like this blog where we use Blogger at the moment as a small feed into the news section and part of our larger site.
Recently the blog has lost it's shine for me and I (like many others) have fallen for Twitter and Plurk. Short, 160-ish character micro blogging. Originally through some of my weekly podcasts like TWIT, Buzz Out Loud and Boagworld I heard about Twitter, the idea of micro blogging strange at first so I 'followed' some of these 'web-celebs' watching for interesting posts and good links. After a while you encourage a few friends to get on too and all of a sudden there's a shared information pool, a reason to go back. Throw into the mix applications for the iPhone like Twinkle that let you micro blog, with geo location AND a photo....they start to get very powerful.
In terms of look and feel though, I LOVE Plurk. It reminds me of my grommit skater days wearing Mambo gear (in a strange karmic twist Jeff Raglus is a client of ours) with it's kooky mascots. The timeline approach (one for you Flash dev'rs out there) is really fluid and intuitive. Conversations are fun to have and easy to follow. YouTube and image links automatically post thumbnails and drop into 'plurks' easily.
A blog post a few weeks back lead to a Plurk timeline conversation yesterday and then a meetup with Rhett from Wade Studios this afternoon at our office in Melbourne! Hopefully this type of connection can lead to some great shared projects between Rhett and Efront. Social networking, blogging, micro blogging, tweeting and plurking, how long it's got I have no idea but damn I'm enjoying it right now.
Enjoy,
Mark
Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008