What is Plurk and what are the Benefits of Plurking?

Plurk is a new thing on the Internet. It is a micro blogging service, where you can type in a short note and post it. The short note could be about what you are doing, what you like, what you want to ask, what you feel, what you love or what you hate. You may ask what is the real use of plurk or plurking as opposed to blogging.

Well, I have to start my introduction with some facts. When we started with web, we had plenty of time on our hands. We spent hours and hours to search things, read all the marketing articles and newsletters. Fast forward to 2008, people do not have time to sit leisurely and read about your lengthy blog posts of your daily ramblings. Every reader has a syndrome "Post Too Lengthy Did Not Read" (PTLDR) syndrome.

I know, I know since you are in hubpages you would like to read lengthy articles, but the other 90% of web users wont agree with you. They want crisp, short notices on what you want to convey to the world. It could be a message, question, feeling or a picture, video or website (URL) that you would like to share. Most importantly, people want to read on their mobile, so no one can read lengthy posts on a tiny screen. Have you heard that your mobile will become the new PC? Pity if you haven't. Mobile PC has already arrived.

This is why the founder of top blogging service went on to establish the first micro-blogging service called "Twitter" . With Twitter, you can post your message with 140 characters. You must restrict your message in 140 characters. The primary objective behind twittering was to update your status to a question "What are you doing?". After bored with the usual statuses such as "I am brushing", "I am in train" etc, twitter users went innovative in their microblogging.

People started writing movie reviews, book reviews (with Amazon affiliation, he mad few thousands every month), shared their favourite videos, conducted polls - all within just 140 characters (for each post). Don't you think that is more bang for the buck? I mean that by spending a few seconds, you can reap better benefits. I am not saying that you should quit blogging to rush in to twitter or plurk. But, go and test it and see how you can market yourself with those microblogging services.

"A plurk is a small message or link, less than 140 characters, that you can broadcast to the whole world, your buddies or just yourself over the web, through instant messaging, and through text messaging on your mobile phone."

Plurk is a new social micro-blogging service. 'Plurk' is a random, slizzy name and your posts are called "plurks", the activity is "plurking" and the users are referred as "plurkers". It is social because, you can invite your friends, follow their updates, you can create groups and send instant messages to them. Plurk is like instant messaging, but with plurk you can instant message the whole world of plurkers. Your plurk posts appear as a timeline with thick bars separating days (Today, Yesterday etc). There is a typing line where you can select "feels", "asks" or some action verb and type in your post. For instance, I posted this

Shalini asks "Why do we like the smell of petrol?''

People can reply to your question just by clicking on the status. You can view all the responses instantly. You can post to plurk from your instant messenger, by text messaging from phone or web. When you login to plurk, the first screen that you see is your timeline. Your posts will be chronologically represented as horizontal bars starting at the time of your update. All the responses to your posts will appear just underneath. You can left-click and drag the screen go to yesterday (towards your right hand side).

You can post an image (.gif, .jpeg or .png) and plurk will display a short thumbnail image. You can post the url of your hubpage or your blog post. There are web services available that will announce your blog post on plurk and twitter whenever your post a new post.

1. Easy to write micro blog posts

2. You can create a fan following by spending just few minutes every day.

3. You can conduct polls and get instant results. Ask a question to find instant answers.

4. Announce your hubpage or blog post URL to create instant bursts of traffic.

5. Write a short bio and include your blog /hubpage URL in it.

6. You can post about anything. No need to worry about a niche.

7. You can express yourself through short messages.

8. Expressing yourself in 140 characters can be challenging. But, that's also fun.

9. You are reaching a whole new audience who are on their mobiles.

10. You need to break your head to write a next post. You can plurk that too.

11. You can get a comfort from your friends because it is instant.

12. Gain new friends and develop new connections. Or find old friends. See what they are upto.

13. Engage in a conversation. In this way, you can create a trust with other plurkers.

14. You can use tiny URL to post your Amazon reviews in case if you want to make some extra bucks. Do a review once a week or so.

15. It is easy to do plurking.

Signing up to plurk takes less than 10 seconds. Join Plurk and find a whole new world.