MANILA, Philippines?Those were the days when we used to be dependent on what the Internet fed us; we couldn?t do anything if what we were looking for was not online.
With the onset of Web 2.0, where the users provide the web content such as blogs, social networking sites, and even online galleries, there is a wider and more personal choice online.
There are thousands of blogs out there and social networking sites thrive in a cutthroat environment, fighting each other for space. Some of these sites have begun to incorporate each other?s features, such as blogging and online galleries in one. Personally, as a user of these sites, I don?t always have the time and energy to whip out prose and poetry or upload pictures.
Fortunately, there is something in between. For several months now, I have been what you can call a Plurker. Plurk?s (http://www.plurk.com) increasing popularity among the Web 2.0 crowd is spreading like wildfire.
Plurking starts here
With Plurk, you dish out your killer one-liners and rhetorical questions called?you guessed it?Plurks. You have no choice really, because there is a character limit for each Plurk so you have to be creative. Creative enough that it catches the attention of your Plurker Friends so they reply to your Plurk. Your Plurks are published in a Timeline, like a chart where a Plurk is placed in the corresponding hour when you actually posted it.
Yes, you still add friends just like a social networking site. Plurker Friends can follow your Timeline and reply to your Plurks, and you can do the same thing with them. For a rockstar feel, you can have Fans?people who can follow your Timeline and reply to your Plurks, but you can?t see theirs. If you feel that something you posted is not something for public consumption, you can always set a post to Private and only select users or groups who are allowed to view it.
Another feature of Plurk is the use of preset verbs in different languages; so you can Plurk not only in English, but also in Tagalog, French, Swahili and many more. One must be used to speaking in third person when Plurking, but of course the verb ?says? is available.
You can post links to websites, photos, and videos too, if one-liners and haikus don?t cut it for you.
Plurkmania
Why the need to be creative? Because in Plurk, what goes around, comes around. What makes it so addicting is the concept of virtual karma. Whenever you Plurk or reply to Plurks, your karma increases. If you don?t Plurk regularly, your karma decreases. Rejections from your friend requests can also decrease your karma.
You may wonder what is the point of all the karma fluctuations. As you gain more karma, you get rewards. Hitting karma of 40 allows you to change your Plurk name to whatever you want, not just your username. Karma of 50 and above gains you more emoticons. A bestseller is the dancing banana, which you can?t feel indifferent about. Love it or hate it, it?s there to put some emphasis on your statements.
Self-discipline required
So far, we have planned parties from a single Plurk, talked about the Kyoto Protocol, debated whether a jacket is cool or not, and even excitedly waited for a friend?s wife to give birth (which turned out to be a false alarm).
It?s addicting, it?s time-consuming, and it?s just too fun. When you open up Plurk and see something like ?200 messages unread,? it takes a great amount of willpower not to read every single one of them, for fear of missing something important. Fortunately, there is such a button that obliterates all temptation, and it?s called ?Mark All as Read.?
Plurk satisfies the need of expressing yourself when you can?t compose a measly paragraph to blog; and it helps to silence the voices inside your head. But as with everything, exercise moderation. Get off the Internet from time to time and have a real, live conversation with other people.
