Plurk Now - Issue One
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Transcript of Plurk Now - Issue One
8/14/2019 Plurk Now - Issue One
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/plurk-now-issue-one 1/7
L A U N C H E D I T I O N
1
Plurk Now!
Welcometo ‘Plurk Now’.Hello! my name is Matthew Hughes, and I am the
writer and creator of ‘Plurk Now’. This is the first issue
of the worlds first Plurk Magazine.
Plurk is one site which means a great deal to me.
Many close friendships have been developed on it,
and through it I have become more socially aware,
and I have developed friendships in places as far
as Indonesia, India, Hungary, Canada and the
USA.
I’ve exchanged recipes with an Indian, discussed
knitting with a German, discussed politics with an
Israeli, spoken to two people who lived in the
Eastern Bloc and to someone who is training to be
a private detective in the USA.
All these experiences and lessons have come to me
at no cost, and have allowed me to expand my
world view, and to learn about different cultures
and countries. This is why Plurk is such an
amazing thing. You’re actively emboldened to getin contact with new people, and learn about
entirely alien cultures.
Unlike Twitter, Plurk allows the building of
interpersonal relationships. It’s not as if you’re
screaming into a crowd, but rather it is a series of
statements where there is a structured discussion
about your statement can receive responses and is
not limited to a singular comment.
Plurk encourages you to interact with people you
do not know and develop friendships. It’s the first
hyper-social friendship, which actively penalizes
you for not being an active cog in the community,which is an absolutely innovative approach to
community building, and has facilitated the
creation of many global social circles.
I started this magazine to share my passion for
Plurk with you, the reader, and to showcase the
talents of Plurk users. I hope you enjoy it, and I
welcome contributions from other Plurk users.
If you have any comments, please feel free to send
me an e-mail at [email protected].
The unofficial Plurk magazine. Available from lulu.com as an e-book or in print.
Introduction
Why Plurk is so
amazing, and why I felt the need to make amagazine about it.Page 1
The Bell Sisters
Three girls who have
made an empire fromdesigning layouts andthemes.Page 2
Plurk Desktop
Applications
An in depth look atwhy Twitter iswinning the desktopapplication war.Page 4
Plurk, by plurkers
Plurkers discuss what
Plurk really is, andwhat it means to them.Page 6
Plurk Academy
How to boost your
karma and get those fancy text formats.Page 7
Foreword
Why do so many Plurk
refugees revisit Plurk?Page 7
A vailable quarterly - Next edition July Issue 1 - April 2009
Credit: Michael Ellis Mitchell
Thingsetc.wordpress.com
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P L U R K N O W
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Virtually all plurk layouts come from
one place. plurklayouts.com. The
brainchild of three girls from Surrey,
England, it serves thousands of plurk
users with professionally made
layouts, and tutorials on how to use
plurk.
I had the good fortune to conduct an
e-mail interview with Olivia, big
sister to Rosanna and Sasha and one
third of the plurklayouts.com team.
What inspired you to start plurk
layouts?
We heard about Plurk when we
received a torrent of email requests –
we thought it was only another social
network, which wasn’t going to be
much good – but we found out they
intended to bring out the ability to
design profiles, so we began to
design plurk layouts, and then
bought the domain for it and there
we are.
What is your work pattern? How do
you stay motivated and focused?
It’s rather complicated really – we all
design and code layouts, but what
we try to do is create so many that
we have them as a back-log. So a
layout I make today won’t go live for
2/3 weeks. Which means if we’re on
holiday (like now) the website will
continue to be updated without us
needing to do so. As for inspiration,
that’s a good question and one I’m
not sure I can answer! We tend to be
sounding boards – we make
suggestions and give each other
ideas. Then there are magazines and
lots of other ways to get inspired.
How do you decide what layouts to
make?
We get a huge amount of requests,
which helps us to see what’s needed,
but otherwise, it’s pretty much
“what’s missing from the website?”
what haven’t we got?”.
How do you and your sisters work
as a team?
That’s a tricky one, it’s not
something we really think about. We
work as a team, and play on each
others skills. I tend to spend more
time working with servers,
databases, wordpress, coding etc,
where as Rosanna and Sasha spend
more time designing and are thus,
better. But it works really well and Ienjoy what I do – as do Rosanna and
Sasha, so it’s great.
What is an average working day
like?
We all sit at one desk, so we’re
opposite and besides each other, all
working at the same time. We often
work on different things, Sasha may
be designing, Rosanna coding a new
layout, and I am often working on
coding and management of the
website – it’s pretty simple really.
How do you make your layouts?
All three of us use Photoshop and
code in a text editor.
What do you feel is your proudest
accomplishment with Plurk
Layouts?
Probably having one of our posts
linked in a Plurk via Plurk Buddy – it
really boosted the website.
Many thanks to Olivia Bell for
taking time out from her vacation to
conduct this interview with me.
The Bell Sisters— By Matthew Hughes
We have been told that Plurk intend to go further – they’re not just
there for fun etc, so I think Plurk has a long way to go and it will be
very successful, but I believe it’s very much a baby, just learning to
crawl.
- Olivia Bell
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P L U R K N O W
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www.plurklayouts.com
For your layouts, tutorials, videos and designs,visit plurklayouts.com.
Want a one of a kind layout?
Bespoke Plurk layouts are available at a cost of
£8.
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Plurk Desktop Applications- By Matthew Hughes
Plurkair is an Adobe Air based client,similar to PlurkIt. Available for free athttp://is.gd/Fhg
Requires Adobe Air and a Plurk account.
Both are available for free at http:// www.adobe.com/products/air/ and http:// www.Plurk.com respectively.
Plurkair is another Adobe Air based client.It is built over the Plurk Mobile Site, andis available for free at http://is.gd/r5r0.
Requires Adobe Air and a Plurk account.Both are available for free at http:// www.adobe.com/products/air/ and http:// www.Plurk.com respectively.
A common criticism leveraged
against Plurk is the lack of desktopapplications available compared toit’s biggest rival in themicroblogging arena, Twitter.
The reason why Plurk is so bereftof desktop applications is the lack of an API (ApplicationProgramming interface).
When Twitter was in its infancy, itmade its API available, whichaccelerated the growth to semi-unsustainable levels, which causedthe Twitter diaspora to sites likeJaiku, Plurk and identi.ca.
Plurk has never released an API,which has contributed to thesomewhat sluggish growth of thesite. There are however manyunofficial Plurk API’s, which offera fraction of the functionality of anofficial API.
Plurk enthusiast Ryan Lim releasedan unofficial Plurk API in 2008,which is the backbone of his karmatracker service and David Blume’sautomated karma medic service.
In spite of the efforts of Ryan Limto develop an API, there has beenno real development of a fully
functional API or desktop app.
Two applications do come close,and they are Plurkair and Plurkit.
They both require Adobe Air, andthey are both strikingly similar tothe Plurk Mobile site, from whichthey are derived.
In terms of features, they are bothidentical. The only difference between the two applications besides their names is that PlurkIthas a help file, which is useless if you have one iota of commonsense, and can work a computer.
There are no new features and nonew interfaces. Neither of themallow for Growl updates, and arelimited to the Mac, Linux andWindows platforms. FreeBSD usersare shit out of luck.
If Plurk wants to remaincompetitive, it needs to consider
offering an API. Otherwise, I feelpeople will move to Twitter for theconvenience of the multitude of desktop and mobile apps.
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Want to advertise here?
For more information.
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P L U R K N O W
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Plurk, by plurkers.By Matthew Hughes
I decided to send out aprivate plurk to all myfriends asking them a simplequestion. ‘What is Plurk inyour own words?’.
@Snailrind
A micro-blogging site that toomany people use like instant
messaging. I like theopportunity for conversation,don't get me wrong. I just get
bored by the vast number of content-free plurks that crossmy timeline.
@hufflepuff_pride_sylvie
Where I can interact withhundreds of people, or asmall group. We can inform
the world about our lives andcomment on other's. Plurk isalso good way to poll peopleon what shirt you should
wear, tea you should drink and what type of food to get.
@starwarsgeekno1
A social networking site
where one can communicatewith people from other placesaround the world who sharecommon interests.
@shailee
A caring, fun community,where I have met some reallyamazing people, and the only
site where I started "chatting"with strangers, who are nowlike very close friends.
@JigmeDatse
In one word "community". To
me that's what makes it somuch different than othermicroblogs I participate in.
@Krisna740
Plurk= people, love,understanding, respect,karma.. It's a social journal tolet people you care about
know your thoughts, feelings,etc. Plurk is about making
connection, creatingcommunity. it's about YOU.
@little_ol_me
Plurk is a place to escape lifeand be another person.
@rolandhesz
Plurk is plurk.
@Michaelmitch
It's a microblogging site, likethe over hyped Twitter, but
better. But does have content-less Plurks such as "Who'sonline?"
@flup
Timeline microbloging fusion
@FannieA great way to rememberwhen it's my boyfriend andI's anniversary. We checked it
because neither couldremember. It's also a placewhere apparently no oneknows when you're joking.
Like on April Fool's Day and
they really believe you'repregnant.
@EdwardJPax
Plurk isn't just a website, andit's not just a domain name--it's basically indescribable...
which is why no one exactlyhas it right. The name alonehints that it's an
amalgamation of so manythings to so many peopledepending on how you look at it. All I know is that for meit's made the world a wholeheck of a lot closer and brings
you into intimate contact withpeople, and these people youwouldn't ever know under
most circumstances, so inessence Plurk might just bemagic... Just saying!
@vehicle
A place to meet great people
like you!
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Final notes...
E-mails
Plurk Now welcomes
correspondence. E-mails may or may not
be published in the next
edition of the magazine.
E-mails should be
around 50 words, and
no greater than 200
words. Anything
exceeding that may be
edited and condensed.
Please send all e-mails
to
matthewhughes@zenbe
.com.
Advertising
We will offer free
advertising to any
regular plurk user in thenext edition of the
magazine. For more
information, please
send an e-mail to
matthewhughes@zenbe
.com with the subject
heading ‘Advertising’.
We reserve the right to
decline requests foradvertisement.
Contact us: Matthew Hughes
Matthewhughes.co.uk
Plurk.com/matthewhughes
With thanks to:Everyone who contributed an answer to our ‘Plurk, by
plurkers’ page.
Special thanks go out to Olivia Bell for her contribution of
the photo of herself and her sisters on page two.
Also, thanks go out to Michael Mitchell who allowed me to
use one of his photos.
You can take the user out of plurk...The other day, I was talking to a friend who left Plurk for twitter. I wasspeaking to him about his move, and I asked him, ‘Well, do you evermiss the friendships you made on Plurk?’.
He confessed that he keeps a close eye (albeit a non-participatory one) onPlurk, and he monitors what people are saying with AIM.
That, I feel, is one of the amazing things about Plurk. With Plurk, you areencouraged to interact with people in an intimate and personal manner.With Twitter, you are discouraged from doing so.
Twitter is, for me, an anti-social network. It’s the digital equivalent of theweird guy stood on a street corner with a sandwich board, shouting andhollering into a crowd. People may see what you’re saying. You mayeven get a response, but people are likely to walk past and forgetwhatever you just said.
Plurk however is like an international, digital ‘Rovers Return’ (Yes, I didjust use a Coronation Street analogy). Anyone can walk in, join in yourconversation, and maybe even cause a barfight! However, it’s a lot moremeaningful and substantial than anything Twitter could ever offer, whichis why people keep on returning to Plurk, even after month long
absences.
Matthew Hughes
Plurk AcademyText Styling
To italicize your text, place your
text between two *’s (*text* would output *text* ). To embolden your
text, place the text between four
*’s (**text** ). To underline your text,
place your text between four
underscores (__Text__).
Karma
For fast increases in karma,
remember to Plurk regularly, use
the Plurk mobile and IM sites and
try to post interesting Plurks, asdefriendings lose you Karma, not
to mention self esteem.