Using Plurk To Cover Events Live

First there was live blogging. Live blogging had a profound effect on the way information was transported, as it allowed the masses access to news and opinion as soon as the person blogging could publish the content. Live blogging helped events gain a much larger audience, as the number of attendees could be virtually doubled or tripled simply because blog readers were now included.

But blogging had its limits. Attendees had to have a laptop, and the had to connected to the internet. Plus, they had to have power supply, which as we all know is not always available at a conference.

Text messaging was not effective for live coverage, because it wouldn’t quickly reach masses. This is where Twitter came in. Twitter combined the idea of text messaging with the concept of blogging. Twitter allowed us to effectively “micro-blog” our lives and instantly publish it to anyone and everyone looking to take a peek.

But even Twitter is missing a vital part of the equation… interaction. Sure, you can reply and see replies with Twitter, but there is no threaded view, no group interaction, and no way to include media in the tweet streams.

This is where Plurk steps in and dominates the live coverage scene.

Unlike any other blogging or micro-blogging tools, Plurk IS 100% interactive. If you were to mash up a chat room, a discussion forum, a blog, and a social network, it would essentially look like Plurk.com.

Businesses, marketers, and any other professional looking to attend conferences or involve friends and colleagues in conferences, should pay close attention to the power of Plurk. The Plurk interface would allow someone sitting in an audience to communicate with an entire office back home, and have that entire office discuss the conference AS IT HAPPENS.

Heck, a Plurker can even record video at a conference, immediately upload it to YouTube, Plurk it to a new thread, have the video viewable in Plurk (without having to open an external URL), and then have an open discussion on the video itself. All from the conference floor!

I think Plurk is opening up a new generation of live communication and coverage, and I for one am excited to be a part of it.