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

mailto:[email protected]






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



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.

http://www.plurklayouts.com/

http://www.plurklayouts.com/



P L U R K N O W

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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.

http://www.plurk.com/




http://www.adobe.com/products/air/




http://is.gd/r5r0

http://is.gd/r5r0









http://is.gd/Fhg

http://is.gd/Fhg



P L U R K N O W

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Want to advertise here?

[email protected]

For more information.







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!



P L U R K N O W

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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

[email protected]

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.











Documents

Plurk Now - Issue One