I dragged my tired social media self to yet another social media site with little expectation but to find another silly waste of time to bookmark in my social networking folder, but what to my wandering eyes would appear but a delightful community full of infectious “plurkiness.” Plurk is a veritable honey pot of good times. There are those Plurking out of mere curiosity and still others swapping vids, pics, links and all the other myriad of happenings you would expect to find on a SM site; accordingly, the infamous call to action for online networking, “join the conversation,” is alive and well. And how!

“But what about Twitter?” you’re asking yourself. I can’t seem to link to the site, *cough* if that answers your question. Not to be a Twitter hater but Plurk’s success may be due in part to the current state of technical difficulties Twitter is facing; however, in all fairness to the Twittdom, their growing pains are a mirror of Twitter’s huge success of which I applaud; I am excited to see how they adapt. In the meantime, we’ve got Plurk!

As promised, I am here to offer some Plurks of wisdom and what better way to begin then looking for friends. If your offline friends are not frequent fliers in the online community, you may not know where to begin. I suggest looking for like-minded Plurkers. One trick is simply to read through the responses and connect with people you find amusing, fabulous, shiny etc… you get the picture. Another trick is to click on the color-coded action verb and look through your timeline. Voila.

Plurk highlights all the similar action verbs in your timeline screen. This may be helpful if you are looking for a thinker vs. a sharer or someone who likes to hate all over their timeline.

Lastly, browse the interesting plurkers section and cull through some of the top Plurkers as well as the recently joined noobs and the smattering of random players. You never know who will be your BPFF (best plurker friend foreva).

Until next time, Plurk it like you mean it!

Cheers,
-Katrina

When typing the text for your Plurks you’ll find there are many ways to clean up your threads by using simple text tricks. You can use these to go bold, use italics, hyperlink text, underline text, and link to Plurker profiles.

Hyper Linking in Plurk
This is a big one. Plurkers, including myself, should try and get in the habit of cleaning up URL’s and using text based links when Plurking. To do this, add both your link title as well as the full URL. It should look like this when typing it: http://www.plurkable.com (Plurkable)

Making Words Bold
Simply add the ** asterisk symbols before and after a word like this: **word**. Use bold to emphasis words or phrases in your thread replies and Plurks.

Linking User Names to User Accounts
This works the same as Twitter in that you simply use the @ symbol like this: @Username. This will generate a link in the user name that goes directly to the user account/profile.

Underlining Text in Plurks
I’m not exactly sure why you would want or need to do this, but it can be done. Add a double __ underscore symbol before and after a word like this: __word__ will.

Using Italics In Plurks
Italics are another way to emphasis words or phrases, and Plurk allows you to use them whenever you need. To use it just add the * asterisk symbol before and after a word like this: *word*. It’s quick, easy, and works like a charm.

Enjoy!