Let me tell you the story about three little blogging platforms, Twitter, Tumblr and Plurk. It all started with a girl who liked to explore the minutiae of people’s lives…
I tried to get into this style of blogging early last year, starting with Pownce. Random people started offering me files like they were big boxes of chocolates, and it all got a bit scary to be truthful. Then, people told me “If you don’t Twitter, you’re not cool!” So I got an account to test the waters and pretty much left it there. I wasn’t interested in receiving sms updates, and having to return to the actual site to read updates was wearying.
Then, riding on a white horse from the horizon came Twirl, and it totally rejigged how I used Twitter. Basically, I can tweet from my desktop and get real time tweets from the people I follow – all packaged in a lovely little interface that isn’t too annoying.
I had eyed Tumblr from across the room, and even rubbed elbows with eatsleepdraw a few times until it clicked that this was Twitter but with images. Finally, something I could get REALLY jazzed about. I use it to post work in progress, finished pieces and inspirational images, as well as random quotes and conversation snippets.
One drawback is that in its natural state, comments aren’t available. However, using Disqus you can plug comments in as a kind of elegant work around. I’ve noticed that Tumblr isn’t very active or community driven, which is weirding me out because usually when you join sites you get a few people meeting and greeting and handing out the complimentary champagne and stuff, but I haven’t had one smidgen of human interaction there yet – maybe it has something to do with the comments being an optional extra? I do love Tumblr, but I want to talk to people!
Suddenly, Plurk comes creeping around the corner in an onomatopoeic fashion. You can post what you’re doing; how you’re feeling; what you’re wanting; images, videos and links. BUT! IN GANT CHART FORM. I think one of my friends joined up just based on this alone!
So, you and your friends’ plurks are arranged in a gant chart – or a timeline – but what sets it apart from Twitter is there’s some kind of mysterious karma system that seems to encourage community driven activity. The whole concept is intriguing, but without a desktop client or sms functionality, it might be something that loses its sheen really quickly. Pity it didn’t come in a box that I could play with when I tire of it!