Don't Back Down

The latest news online is the emergence of Plurk in the realm of social sites. Heck, I don't even know if that's the right term. But it allows you to find and connect to others, so that makes it social enough for me, and you'll just have to pardon my ignorance if I happened to classify it incorrectly.

The about page at Plurk is simple - it's less than a half-page (depending on the size of your monitor) and simply defines the site as A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life in deliciously digestible chunks. Straightforward enough for you? In practice, it's like a competitor to Pownce and Twitter (yes, jaiku too, but since they are still in closed beta, and no one takes them seriously, I can't really say).

So the big question is: Which one is for you? That's the tough question to answer. Luckily, you don't have to pick just one, but chances are you'll use one more than the others.

Twitter, the Gorilla in the Corner

Twitter is undoubtedly the gorilla in the space. Everyone who is anyone uses Twitter. The problem with Twitter is that there are many well-known and well-documented cases with the service keeping up. So do you go with the service that everyone uses, or do you go with a competitor who is smaller, where the service is better? That's a tough call. The good thing about Twitter is that you can access it in a number of ways. There are a huge number of external clients - one reason for its popularity (I like Twhirl), and you can even just use a plain old text messaging client. At the end of the day, it will work just about the same way - a bunch of data flowing back and forth.

To Pownce or not to Pownce

Pownce wants to be the gorilla, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Despite a slicker interface, and some nice features, such as linking your profiles, I get next to no traffic on Pownce. I'll be the first to admit that I don't use Twitter a lot. I am following only aboug 70 people. Out of those, I probably only found 30 or so when I tried to have Pownce import my Twitter contacts. So that's the first problem - Twitter has the first-mover advantage. The second problem is that Pownce works at least as poorly as Twitter, with less traffic! If I'm going to have bad service, I might as well go with the leader! When I tried to import the contacts that it found on Pownce, I couldn't get it to work, and I ended up having to try and do it multiple times. At the end, only one of those contacts - one of them - has actually responded to my request, let alone posted anything. It seems to me that Pownce is as good as dead.

Plurking the Night Away

Which brings me to Plurk, the new kid on the block. Suddenly emerging over the last few days, there has been a flurry of activity. There was a burst of activity on Pownce as well - but Plurk has been able to stay up (which is a good thing). The thing I don't like off the bat is that Plurk can only import data after handing off user names and passwords. I don't like that. I'd rather give it profile pages, which are completely open, without requiring authentication. So at the moment, I'm just seeing what I can find on my own. And I don't like what I see - finding users is a bit of a pain. It could be easier.

Beyond that, the web interface is pretty nice. Your messages - or plurks (which is a pretty stupid name) show up imposed on the timeline. You then click them to see the message, and replies. You can click the author of the reply to see their profile. If you are friends with the author, you can send a private plurk too. It would be nice if you weren't friends if you could initiate that process from the drop down, but that's not possible. The actions in the window can be clicked, so you can filter the view on that action - it's like Schoolhouse Rock meets Twitter. The scrolling of the timeline is nice too.

There is even a mobile version, but the power is definitely diminished. I can't imagine using it via IM, and third-party apps, sucha as Twhirl, would pretty well have to rebuild the web interface, which make it a moot point - about all you gain is taking it out of the browser. Plurk is definitely a client app. That's not a bad thing. It just is.

So, Which One Do I Use?

If you want to actually communicate with people, and promote yourself or your business, Twitter is probably the best bet, even with all the problems. It is simply the largest, and will be for some time. In my opinion, Pownce is a non-starter. While a good idea, the critical mass never got moving. Plurk, however, has promise. Being a web-based interface isn't a bad thing. It's heavier than, say, the Google home page, but it's not bad, and it is very responsive. But I find that it makes following conversations very easy. You can share videos and pictures simply. So it has it's place. It will just take time to grow. And no one ever said that you had to use one service exclusively!