Twitter or Plurker

I suppose each decade can be defined by the important questions:

The Seventies- " Who Shot J.R."
The Eighties -"Where's the Beef"
The Nineties- "Boxers or Briefs"

Now we are in the first decade of the 21st Century and it appears the question is

"Twitter" or "Plurk" and I suppose or "Jaiku".  To say nothing of "Pownce".  

I already mentioned the phenomenon of the micro blog, the 140 character blog that is becoming a fixture in anyone's Internet experience.

I realize I may be putting a lot of currency on a system that may only be a month or two old, by that I mean Plurk but I think that it may be the next step in the evolution of the mico blog. 

 I say this because:  like Twitter it too is going through it's growing pains.  When Twitter commenced some of the commentators quickly criticized it for the banal postings.  Things such as " I got up this morning and had toast".  Or, " watched TV", were pointed to as proof that Twitter was inane and gave people the right to post the minutia of their lives.  One of the jokes on Crankygeeks  has to do with Sebastian Rupley.  He was more or less shamed to set up the account and some of his early postings were: "Sitting in my new beanbag chair watching TV".  Of course later he accused of John C. Dvorak of posting them.

However, Twitter seems to have gronw up.  Now a great number of posts have to do with links and more information.  It is becoming another way to blog, albeit in 140 characters.  Which of course makes it easy to post thorugh the cellphone.  Certainly it's popularity has grown so there is a bushel of API, apps and mashups.  It was discovered by SXSW and grown up there too.  It has inspired a number of cartoons. 

With Twitter you can follow the Mars Phoenix Lander.    So it is becoming serious.  A number of newsfeeds twitter including CNN. 

It's big problem is its success.  Now people are complaining about the number of times its servers are down.  But I think while people complain or get sarcastic when they experience only a minimum of problems over the day, it is still a positive part of the Internet.

Now comes Plurk.  I'm not considering jaiku because I think is rather stilted in its growth, although according to Leo Laporte, the creators are planning a major roll out and getting it embedded with Nokia.  Listen to the latest TWIT for this information.

Now what about Plurk?

Well, it is based upon the 140 character protocol of the micro blog but it adds the ability to share videos, from YouTube and photographs that you share with others.  You can share from Flickr.  Both medias are shared with ease.

As I have mentioned, Plurk is irreverent, it is simply fun.  At first it is odd looking in that it misses the neatness of Twitter.  The timeline seems to reveal the regular result of multiple conversations taking on at the same time.  As well, each post can become a conversation.  Other plurkers can add their comments and so a nice string can take place.

It is developing its own unique style.  The main features seem to be a concern with karma, dancing bananas and coffee.  The latter seems to be the beverage and legal stimulant of a lot of plurkers.  There is also a dictionary.  Plurk is being added to a number of words, and it is all brought about by users.

We plurkers are very involved with each other and our own karma.   If it goes up there is dancing bananas, if it goes down there weeping and gnashing of teeth.   There was a news release today that Plurk is going to change calculation of karma.   I don't know if we know how karma works now, and they are going to change it?

Still, Plurk is flirty and fun.  It's people getting together and having a good time.  It's becoming a minion of HotFish, which is a great honour.

I will continue to use Twitter and I will use Plurk.  Follow me with both.  If you don't have an invite, send me a message and I'll send you one.  It will mean adding friends and my karma will go up.  

Enjoy.