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In case Twitter wasn’t taking up enough of your time, there is a new guy on the block, all blinged out in Ajax, looking for a little attention. I have to say, Plurk is a pretty cool Twitter clone. It allows all of the basic features of Twitter and then its spiced up a bit.

Status Updates

Plurk’s status updates are a little smaller than Twitters and at times a little hard to read. However they do pack a little extra punch with a comment system as well as qualifiers.

Plurk and Twitters status

Plurk(top) and Twitter(Bottom)

Twitter’s reply button sometimes just does not cut it and the more I’ve been using FriendFeed and Plurk, the more I long for such a feature. The qualifier button is also pretty dam cool. Its kind of like Twistori however it’s built into the system and you can use it to sort friends’ posts based on the qualifier.

Comment System

So now a little bit more about my favorite function of Plurk, its comment system. Its very similar to FriendFeeds comment system in that you can comment on specific status updates.

Plurk Comments

The number to the right of a post tells you how many comments that post has.

This definitely encourages more conversation as replys tend to get lost in Twitter (especially if your not using a 3rd party app). Plurk also seems very speedy in notifying you of new comments and posts.

Plurks Comment System

Plurk’s Comment System

I guess you could compare it to a mini chat rather than a comment system since everything is happening in real time.

So what do I not like about Plurk?

Well besides the goofy name, I’d have to say that in the end, at least for me, simplicity wins the game. That’s why i chose Google over Yahoo and then Dreamweaver over Frontpage. But complexity aside it might be too early in the game to make an honest call on the matter. Twitter’s API makes up for what it lacks in built in features as the community is constantly pushing its boundaries (and its servers). I also found it very easy to make friends in Twitter where as in Plurk I am still at a loss. The friends I have currently are my friends from Twitter :).

Conclusion

Plurk

  • Awesome comment system
  • Nifty graphics
  • Filtering by qualifiers

Twitter

  • Simplistic
  • More customization capabilities
  • API

I would say that, at least for the moment, I am going to stick with Twitter because of the large amount of 3rd party apps and my cool customized home page. Plus I’d hate to have to start all over again making new friends.

Follow me on Twitter

Follow me on Plurk

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  • http://piskaaprilia.blogspot.com piska

    I have twitter and Plurk account, but i like Plurk ten Twitter, maybe because i have a lot of friend using Plurk. I loved the commenting system, and try to make more karma so i can get more emoticon.

  • http://crestfallen.nu Nat Marie

    I use the both of them. A lot of my friends still use Twitter and only Twitter, so I can’t leave them assed out in the cold, but I also met some people who use Plurk, so I guess it’s the best of both worlds maybe.

    I love Plurk’s commenting system. The thing I’ve noticed though is that it’s not compatible at all with Opera. Works fine with everything else, but if I try to do anything in Plurk in Opera it will be 10 times harder.

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  • http://ppm.myopenid.com/ Pierre-Philippe Martin

    Thank you for this interesting comparison of those two microblogging platforms. I agree that Plurk is a little too smart for its own good, and would also favor Twitter’s simplicity and larger network for now. Also, I have had problems with Plurk on one of my PCs where the “timeline” remains blank!

  • http://griffmiester.myopenid.com/ griffmiester

    I’m completely agreeing with you on this. I have a plurk account, and I have a twitter account. Plurk I’m finding needs more time to be involved. Time which I don’t have.
    I like that with twitter I can ignore it or use it as I need/want. What bugs me with it at the moment is all the issues, the outages, the reduced number of hourly API calls…
    I’m sticking with twitter for the time being.

  • http://derrickkwa.com Derrick Kwa

    I don’t really like having to start all over again as well, though I’m trying. The thing is, I think Plurk could really make it a lot easier to transfer your Twitter network.

    Considering that most of us use the same userids on various sites, it shouldn’t be too hard for them to create a one-click import tool. They could use the Twitter API, scan the list of people you are following, and search for people by that username on Plurk. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would make things much easier.

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