Just like the title says… Where haz Private Plurks gone?? I was online about a week ago when Nethead broke the news that new windows were appearing without the private plurk function. I had noticed something similar at the same time and when I refreshed really knew what he meant; I had no more private plurks button.

That being said it’s been a while now that they have been gone. Let’s get serious; social media is cool but the one of the points in friending someone is so you can talk to them privately. You don’t need to follow, fan, friend anyone to simply throw your $0.02 in their plurks. I think part of the reason social media is so popular is because with a simple friend request your not really friends but you are a distant acquaintance and if need be can send them a private note. Also somewhat related I think lot’s of hilarious plurks people don’t want to share with the world get sent through private plurks and if you have a few friends your bound to find some interesting ones.

I’ve been away from plurk for a while; actually just away from the computer. Doing things in my life, taking vacation and just enjoying an active summer lifestyle before the snow falls and we’re all trapped inside again. Last night I noticed that the private plurks were still not there so I decided to plurk about the fate of private plurks. Sure enough like anything in life there is always plan B.

Turns out they disabled it to ease the load on the servers. YES!! That’s a good sign that plurk is growing and let’s get serious this is summer in North America; it’s usually a slow time as everyone is out doing what I described I was doing in the last paragraph. If you want to check your private plurks simply go to the plurk mobile page and you can check them there. Thanks KDFrawg for explaining this to me.

Let’s hope they get private plurks back up in the near future and continue to grow. Sure I’m assuming they are growing but why not? It’s a sick user interface and should only be a matter of time until everyone uses it.

Stay tuned for more things plurk,

- Rob

P.S Turns out I missed the plurkCAST, video PlurkCAST etc etc… If you want to know what happened last week check out Plurkiverse for now.

Looks like PLURK A-Team is up to it again; more badges yay! The new badges are the ones for Plurk Nirvana and for over 50 fans.

I like the Plurk Nirvana one but don’t like the Fans one. I hope one day the Plurk A-Team will come on the PlurkCAST and fill us all in on their vision.

Are we supposed to make friends or fans? I don’t get it. You get penalized if you add a friend and they fan you. Now you get a badge for rejecting people and making them fans? If there was no karma loss and no benefits of fans more people would become friends, which I feel is the number one reason for these types of sites to exist. You make friends, you form collaborations you grow.

I’m curious to see what the next badges are; if they are trying to curb spam I sincerely hope it’s not for “Number of plurks” or “Number of responses”.

Stay tuned for more things plurk,

-Rob

P.S They also added color to some of the Plurk Buddies which looks pretty cool. If you check my profile you’ll see I’m rocking the snot green… (No clue its name).

We all know I love plurk; obviously or I wouldn’t dedicate my time to writing on the subject when I”m not using the network. Recently the compete score came through and it appears that the numbers of Plurk users has in fact gone down since the last evaluation.

First let’s visit Compete.com

Date: 07/2008 People Month ? Year ? What is this?
plurk.com 267,026 -18.8% N/A

Compete shows that Plurk stats are down 18.8%

Second let’s visit Alexa.com

Feel free to click on the Alexa graph for further details. According to Alexa they are up over 3 months. I’m curious how it is over the last month. I think both metrics are horrible but the best we have to gauge without actually looking at the actual statistics. Another reason why the Alexa is probably less affected is because most people using plurk probably use the Alexa tool bar. I know the tool bar has less weight then before but I still believe it has some. Webmaster / Early Adopter / Geeky stuff always ranks higher its’ where the geeks w/ the tool bars hang!

First I think it makes sense for it to be tapering down a bit. It had it’s initial “introduction” and many people checked it out; opened an account used it. Some continue to use it while others most likely moved on. I know I do that with most social media networks I join. I just like plurk a lot more so I stick around. Obviously Plurk has a GREAT ACTIVE community but my question is how many NEW plurkers are coming in and really joining the party?

I do think that Needy Karma is the biggest detractor to casual / new users using the system. I also think that Plurk may be asking too much of its community; sometimes I feel like I’m being used. Do you know any other sites that demand you use the site 4X a day plus to stay in “Good standings”?

Another reason I think plurk could be losing some traction is because of the new front page.

When I saw that for the first time besides the word “EMO” I loved it. I was intrigued it was something NEW. Now they have made the front page look so generic like they unzipped some script and made their own “Social Media Network”. It just doesn’t look original it looks generic which is too bad considering Plurk is anything but generic. Ok ok this probably isn’t a valid reason but I just thought I’d throw it out there as I really dislike the new front page.

I think Plurk is going to be alright and continue to grow but I just thought I’d mention this as it’s something I noticed and thought I’d share.

What can we as the community do to help? Well if you have a blog; blog about it. Just write anything about why you like it or mention a plurk you liked or anything. Your readers will probably check it out if they trust what you say. Also don’t spend too much time on plurk; haha. I know it sounds weird saying that but check your sites are you losing ground while gaining karma? I did for a while heck I wasn’t even posting in my blog forum anymore. The reason I’m pointing this out is if you only spend your time on Plurk how will it grow? Everyone needs to let others know. It would be a shame if this never hit real critical mass.

Stay tuned for more things plurk,

- Rob

P.S I think the Invite code is totally spammy. Imagine telling someone hey you will like this site and then sending them an affiliate link?… That’s what the current system is doing.

Just last night Plurk released the new community badges and made some interface tweaks. Woke up this morning and the A-Team is at it again. The latest upgrade is the ability to reply to someone via their info overlay. I really like this feature.

When I first got in to twitter, (B.P - Before Plurk) I never got into using 3rd party apps. One of my biggest “pet peeves” about twitter was that I had to type in the persons user name each time I wanted to reply. Some people have REALLY LONG or complicated names and on top of that you have to spell it 100% correct or it won’t have the desired effect. This is coming from someone who types well over 100 words a minute; I wonder what this was like for the 2 finger typists and everyone in-between?

Now you can simply click next to the persons name until the down arrow appears; click that and choose to do an @ reply. Doesn’t get much easier than that!

Stay tuned for more things plurk,

- Rob

I was going to go to the bar but somehow here I am blogging about Plurk. First thing I noticed when I routinely clicked “profile” and checked what was new were the new icons below karma. After seeing the community badges, I noticed the star appears there as well and no longer on the avatar on the timeline. I immediately started a plurk to see if anyone had noticed any other tweaks to the user interface; nothing.

Curious what a Plurk Community site is? At first I assumed it’s the “Unofficial Plurk Blog’s” listed on Plurk’s Official Blog; however Amix set the record straight. I’d assume qualifying websites are those that have really embraced plurk and are dedicated solely to it and have been for some time. It’s cool to be recognized by the designers; not aware of any other networks where the admins show appreciation like this. I’m curious what’s going to happen now… Everyone who received a badge the first go around is genuinely a plurk enthusiast as most of these sites were started within a month of the initial “Plurksplosion” into the scene in early June. Where will the line be drawn that determines if a site is eligible or not? I think largely it has to do with the definition of “community”; which typically involves some sort of defined purpose and level of activity. Will this create more work as the requests start flooding plurk’s inbox? Will this turn off people who for whatever reasons tried to get the badge but got rejected?

I’m undecided on the badge idea and my prediction is that the vast majority of plurker’s won’t care about or notice the new badges. I also believe a small group will make a big deal out of it being unfair while many more will apply for the badge whether they qualify or not.

I think this recent user interface could be a great transition towards a system geared more at the casual once a day or so plurker. (We addicts aren’t going anywhere; we love the platform) In this system the badges, stars and other symbols of participation levels(even karma) are visible but not the center of attention. Most plurkers won’t get a star, a badge or reach nirvana so why make them front and center like the star used to be and karma still kinda is? Where plurk goes from here is anyone’s guess but I’m looking forward to it.

Stay tuned for more things plurk,

- Rob

Recently most die hard plurkers noticed when they woke up that Karma had stopped updating. Essentially the karma system was broken or at least stalled. Of course there was a million plurks about it; some being thrilled, others frustrated, upset or annoyed and everything in between. As the day progressed and the issue continued I kind of liked knowing that I would not be penalized for not plurking. Also I wonder how much less noise everyone’s time-line would have if people only generated new plurks when they generally have something interesting to share?

I thought I’d mention this as it was the night before Karma froze that I decided I wasn’t going to bother adding a generic “Good night Plurk zzzzZZZzzz” and it was awesome to wake up to the same score I left with. If I really wanted to increase my karma I could of posted; but to not post and feel see no repercussions was pretty cool. I barely use twitter anymore but one thing I really do like is that if I’ve logged in today or two weeks ago it’s just glad to have you back.

Eventually the A-team became aware of the issue and as per usual found a remedy shortly thereafter. One incident that happened during this karma freeze/stall/whatever was that some people’s Karma was actually changed; below is an actual screen shot of someone who thought they hit the jackpot!

How would you feel in the morning if you woke up to a clean 99.99 karma? I am just glad syktek mentioned it and that I got a screen shot. I think it’s going to be a little while before WendyKnits most likely hits it!

While we’re on the topic of “karma oddities” I’m going to attach another image which happened after Plurk had it’s “New Shoes” for those of you that remember. “New Shoes” was a recent update that originally state ~1 hour took most of the day. This could explain the large jump seen in the screen shot below but I’m not totally convinced. After the new shoes were successfully on some people had increased; others decreased so I don’t think everyone went down. Either way within ~12 hours of the event I logged in and to my surprise saw +1 Karma. Most of us know that once you hit 60 it typically climbs in intervals of ~0.09% and sadly drops in ~0.09-0.15%. What’s weirder: going up 1 or going up 1 to exactly 66.66?

Apart from this Plurk has been running rather well lately; I’m interested to see where it goes in the next few months. Next time they update their karma algorithm it would be great if they started viewing plurk through the eyes of a casual, average internet user. If Plurk is to stick around and hit critical mass it will be highly dependent on the group just mentioned. Early adopting, always online, tech evangelists by no means represent the majority of the social media / networking crowd.

Stay tuned for more things plurk,

- Rob

P.S Be sure to tune into our weekly PlurkCAST, every Wednesday at 5PM EST.


Before reading this understand the premise for this bloggery. It’s Sunday night and I login to Plurk after a fun day and see my karma has dropped; whatever. Now I don’t have ANYTHING worthy of sharing with anyone and I’m about to go to bed. If I don’t post about something I’ll be down again. Do I really have to plurk about what I’m doing four times a day to stay in good graces on this network?

The question is what’s the experience for someone new to plurk? What about the casual user who doesn’t have friends berating them about how great it is? You register think plurk is alright; check back a day or two later with almost no karma and a big down arrow to say thanks for coming back? Regardless of what people may say most want to be a user in good standings according to the networks terms.

The karma system at Plurk is much too needy in its current state. It’s no surprise that some sources claim plurks numbers are down. This same piece also mentions that those that are into it are really into it. Sounds to me like some love plurk and will do whatever is required to stay in “positive” standings while others are being totally put off by it.

Regardless of your level of interest in karma it’s human nature to dislike negative grades. Each time a casual user or even a remotely dedicated daily user logs in; they see a negative if the last login wasn’t a few hours prior. All this wouldn’t matter if there wasn’t such stress on karma. The plurk widget you embed on your site is promoting karma, plurk’s “most interesting” list and of course access to site features are all based on karma. Seems like everything revolves around karma?

My sentiment is that if such an integral part of the site is too demanding of the users attention it’ bound to turn off many casual ones. It could also eventually turn off those in the interested / somewhat dedicated group as well; bad news for an emerging network.

I always hate it when someone complains and makes no suggestions. Here are mine: make it possible to maintain a steady score by plurking every ~48+ hours. Your karma only starts to decline(gradually) after ~48+ hours of no updates. In order to increase your karma it could be left essentially the same but preferably 1 or 2 updates a day instead of 3 or 4.

At least by writing this I have something relevant to share with my friends while avoiding karma’s wrath.

Stay tuned for more things plurk,

-Rob