Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
An intimate guide for the socially inclined
Unless the rock you’re hiding under has been blocking that Wi-fi signal you were pinching, you’ve likely heard of the latest Social Network in the fray – Plurk. And those of you not in the quarry would know its like Twitter’s friendlier sister who’s got a full featured personality. But is Plurk really a player in the big game with the likes of MySpace, Facebook and Twitter? Who are these Plurkers and should you bother with yet another social profile?
To look into just what is going on over there and find out what might make this cool tool or deadpool; we decided to talk to some People Lurkers (Plurkers).

The initial experience
There is certainly a sense that the Twitter Whale has a large role in Plurk’s initial success as is some of the ‘gee whiz’ factor that Plurk brings to the table. There was certainly no lack of Twitter references or people that had emigrated via Tweets as down-time and fluttery birds left the addiction unsatisfied. But that certainly wouldn’t explain why people stayed.
One thing common in my research was the fact that Plurk seems to enable and encourage a friendlier atmosphere and is perceived not to be as business-like as Twitter… Why? That seems to vary on items including;
- The Name
- The Timeline
- Emoticons (smileys)
- Threaded conversations
- Chat room environment (which Old Schoolers seemed to like)
- Conversation diversity
- Relaxed personal environment
This common sentiment was best put by Audrey Seiberling with;
“I see Plurk as more of a social gathering and Twitter as a professional tool.”
But this wasn’t uniquely universal as noted by Mike Wilton, whom is more an information hound than socialite;
“ …a lot of the users that I typically get my information from aren’t using it and the ones who are; aren’t using it in the same way they use Twitter. Plurk has been filled with a lot more banter than information sharing.”
In the end the most endearing aspect seems to be a personal touch that many get from it. Many people related to it much like forums and chat rooms of days gone by. For the Bloggerati out there is a great place to reach out and communicate with the user base on a more informal atmosphere. Twitter is often perceived to be a publishing atmosphere whereas Plurk offers true, cohesive interactions.
Who’s using Plurk?
While I did have limited access to the full numbers and other 3rd party sources vary, it is safe to say that much of the early adopters are definitely the geeky types and more specifically, the web development, blogging and marketing set. One of the better responses once more came from Audrey;
“I truly believe internet marketers are the beta testers for all things “trendy” on the net.” – Audrey Seiberling
We have seen some of the usual suspects like Leo LaPorte and Guy Kawasaki, as well as socialites such as Muhammad Saleem, Maki and Progblogger’s Darren Rowse. I haven’t really seen too many big name evangelists outside of Leo. There has not been corporate adoption such as we’ve witnessed with Twitter… but that could likely change should the buzz continue.
More and more as each week passes the demographics seem to be getting more toward the average web wanderer as its user base swells. Is it enough to make it a legitimate place for leveraging marketing campaigns or research? There seems to be enough inertia at this point to seriously consider it and start building a dialogue – but remember this is a more personal space and tact is likely an important tool in best utilizing the power of Plurk.
Is this business or personal?
Another area that we talked about was how Plurk was being used. While seen almost entirely as a networking tool there was also the same line of thought that it was encouraging less formal conversations. Some Plurkers also noted that they found the informal setting had allowed them to get on the radar with those they considered to be the thought leaders in their industry. Once more the lines of personal and professional seemed to meld.
Some noted aspects being;
- Blog visibility
- Forming industry relationships
- Forming friendships with like minded individuals
- Meeting new friends
- Personal support mechanism
- Access to industry whos-who
Among the respondents, Steven Bradley summed it up well;
“The people I network with are like minded individuals, but we network in a personal and conversational manner.”
One very interesting aspect is that many people gravitated to the site for networking only to find themselves in a more relaxed personal setting. This most certainly not only creates a unique identity for Plurk but also hints at what may give it wider adoption in the long run.
Another interesting side effect is that many people have also found that their other social profiles have also been growing since they started on Plurk (such as; Twitter, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed etc..). So, while not a direct goal of using the service, it has been a tool for furthering other profiles.
This persona branding was seen as well suited to this medium to some such as Samir Balwani whom added;
“If you want straight brand recognition, more people seeing your logo and name, then Twitter is the way to go. If you want people to associate your brand with a personality, Plurk is where you have to be. “
Plurk as a Traffic Driver
While most of the people that took part did own a blog, most were hard-pressed to actively promote it nor seen great traffic boons. To qualify this though, it wasn’t far from Twitter activity in that most had limited response from traffic promotion akin to what they experienced on Twitter. Most have been inching towards more active promotion of their content on Plurk in the coming months.
“If a post falls in the forest and no one’s there to read it can it go viral?” - Steven Bradley
Once more pulling the train back into personal attachment station, there was an aversion to appearing spammy and thus greater intimacy with respective follower bases seemed to be the call of the day. While those that had tried driving traffic found a greater latency effect than one might with a platform such as Twitter.
One of the better snippets that was borne from this journey was again from Audrey ‘the Quotable’;
“With Twitters unorganized layout and difficulty in following conversations, I found that many sites and posts I attempted to share were lost in the fray. With Plurk, everytime someone leaves a new response on one of my Plurks, it puts that particular Plurk in front of all of my friends and fans faces again. This helps for people who may have missed the original Plurk to still see it and visit that link.”
One can surmise that such considerations which give rise to greater reach and presence would also work great for lesser known bloggers and obviously encourage viral for more known entities.
Be warned though, there is every reason to believe that this is not a place for the broadcast style of promoter. Merely posting your latest blog post, product or service announcement detracts from the personal interaction and can as easily turn people off. Once one earns respect among followers/friends is likely the best time to start considering overt promotions or data collection.
As with many related sites, networking and forming consumer relations should be the primary goal and driving traffic a mere benefit of those relationships. This is not as much social media is it is a networking platform – understand this well.
Which way did that rabbit go?
One of the more troublesome or unique aspects to Plurk is trying to contain and track the conversations one gets in. Notably, people long for a way to hunt down favourite threads and past interactions. To a certain degree one can do so via cliques; private threads that can easily be accessed. But adoption of this wonky system is slow.
Most people though have not been utilizing them to any degree and most agree some further type of segmentation would be useful. While considered an upgrade to systems such as Twitter some consistent road blocks included;
- Building cliques non-intuitive
- No notification of Private/Clique Plurks
- Resistance to checking Private/Clique Plurks
- Instability of Clique system
One simple example that Samir noted in his lamentation of the fumbling system was;
“ ….some way to alert the user that they have private plurks even if it’s just another link, for example 6 updates | 250 responses | 7 private plurks | 100 private responses – ”
Ultimately while there are situations where grouping followers can be advantageous, it does not solve the problem of being able to track conversations with greater ease. This is certainly one area that is worth looking at for the Plurk development team.
The Crystal Ball
One of the more important areas we covered in our conversations with Plurkers was where they felt Plurk was headed. There were mixed feelings as far as where it might fit in as far as reaching maximum velocity or ultimately being a niche locale. A flash in the pan it most certainly is not; to a person, each felt there was a future for this micro-blogging schizophrenic.
In many ways, as noted, Plurk is not really a Twitter clone nor replacement. It does remain to be seen if people really have time for both in their busy lives. Beyond that there was a sense that some new features are required to really make this a true competitor to Twitter;
- search for friends by Zip Code, Area Code, Interests, etc
- SMS, IM, and API support,
- Browser add-on system
- Ability to bookmark/track Plurk threads
- Groups or rooms that anyone can join (unlike cliques)
Some good news is that the Plurk team has discussed having an API released soon and are cognisant of the potential issues;
“We will release an API, the reason why we don’t do it now is because it’s a challenge to make it scale - > and we don’t want to release something that will be a burden for the general service.” – Amix’s comment on PlurkiVerse
One does have to believe that there is the potential for the service to actually plateau short of wider adoption without some more prominent evangelists to legitimize it or features to deal with some existing roadblocks. While the personal nature of the platform and threaded replies are certainly strong points, people will usually hang out where their friends are – so adoption may be the key to its ultimate place in the social networking space.
Obviously along with this will be the ability or Plurk to scale properly without getting into the crash cycle such as we’ve seen on Twitter. Once more, there are as many differences as similarities between Plurk and Twitter and one can’t truly compare the two
The Verdict? If you’re looking for a new social space with a personal flavour you most certainly should give Plurk a try. If you’re a business or blogger looking to further nurture a following or consumer relations, then be warned this is a place where broadcast style micro-blogging without a more personal touch can easily backfire.
If you’re interested in carrying on this discussion and add some thoughts of your own; be sure to check out the newly created Collective Thoughts on Plurk.
Plurk posts to continue your journey
Plurk VS Twitter – they’re not the same, here’s why - Tamar
Plurk brings micro-forums like Twitter brought micro-blogging - Search Engine Roundtable
Teeg’s wonderful Plurk series; the 10 Minute guide to Plurk ( and Part II & Part III)
Looking for live webcasts? Check out the Plurk Calendar
To those that helped; I want to thank some of the fine folks that took time to answer a few rounds of questions from yours truly as this post wouldn’t exist without you –
Kristen Munson - Social Media Mom
Samir Balwani – Left the Box
Andy Glover - Green Eggs and Spam
Mike Wilton - Musings for a Darkened Room
Audrey Seiberling - Shirley Tipsy
Zak Nicola - Zak’s Blog
Vicky Anglin - Vicky’s Virtual Office
Steven Bradley - Van SEO Design
Also I’d love to thank all the fine folks that took the time to play in the following threads on Plurk;
What to do about this silly Karma score
Have you tried driving traffic via Plurk?
Are you a Plurk convert?
What would you like to see added?
Plurk and qualitative research
What brought you to Plurk and what keeps you there?
Informal age/occupation demographics - here and here
Posted in social media | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
People like to talk about social media sites in terms the amount of traffic sent by getting on the front page, backlinks, profile backlinks, and passing pagerank.

Image credit: sara.musico
Today, we’re going to have a little fun with it. We’re going to take the web 1.0 metric of time on site and go a little more touchy feely with it for a web 2.0 world. Trust me, this will be fun. Here is a list of my top 5 favorite most addictive sites within social media. Perhaps they aren’t even my favorite, but rather that I can’t seem to get myself off of them
Plurk
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes - something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the safe Plurking habits guide recommends no more than 30 Plurks per day. Brilliant.
Twitter
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using Twitterfox and Hahlo for the iPhone). It’s great for asking questions, looking for resources on a project, and keeping up with what people are doing.
Breaking news can often be found on Twitter as well. And yes, it has been criticized for its uptime performance - the same people that are hitting the refresh button every 2 minutes while Twitter is down
Yeah, it’s that addictive.
StumbleUpon

It’s been around considerably longer than many people think. StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites due to all the great finds I get through it. SU is a true discovery engine, something that if positioned correctly can give traditional search a true run for its money. StumbleUpon is doing something right, and people are taking notice. I’m a big fan of what they have done with SearchReviews (now in Yahoo as well), putting in your friends stumble ratings right on the SERPS.
Facebook

I know what you’re thinking. Facebook is for kids. It’s annoying. It invades my privacy. Say what you will, but with facebook chat, a few addictive apps, and seeing people on there that mainly stay off other social sites (read: have a life off the computer), Facebook is still a daily mainstay for me. It’s a great way to connect with people that you haven’t seen in years, and you can quickly get lost in time through all the possibilities.
Digg

Image credit: Valleywag
Say what you will. Digg has its issues, but for me, it’s still something I’m checking out throughout the day. While Digg has its challenges and critics, it really is a great place to find a wealth of content (and finally has a new comment system). Yes, a lot of it is just funny/linux/apple, but there really is a lot of good stuff.
There are several others that just missed the list for me: Mixx, Reddit, LinkedIn and FriendFeed, just to name a few. Reason is that I’m finding with the demands of my total addict sites, I’m just not spending time on these other sites every day consistently.
Which social sites are you finding the most addictive?
Posted in social media | 32 Comments »
Friday, April 4th, 2008

This post is inspired by Dave Gorman the UK comedian who is known in the UK for looking for other Dave Gormans amongst others and in America as the stats guy who occasionally appears on the Daily Show. Dave Gorman was recently featured in a TV show where he traveled across America only to make it far more fun he choose to travel without giving any money to “The Man”. “The Man” is the large faceless corporations that seem to be pandemic across the western world from Starbucks to Wal-Mart to IBM “The Man” is everywhere. If you haven’t seen the film or read the book go do so now!
So can you market a site without “The Man”?
Dave was on Radio 2 the other day (yes I am an old fart) promoting his book and he got me thinking with Tad’s ranting on Google doubled with people’s general dislike of corporations is it possible today to market your site without the aid of these large groups.
Well, let’s find out!
Domain names and websites
It’s actual impossible to create and market a website without giving to the man. Since the domain registration system is run by a large corporation and while ICANN the global governing body is a non-profit corporation in the US nearly every national registrar is a faceless corporation. However all is not lost and with a quick tweaking of the rules finding a mom and pop registrar which is reselling a big boy is possible. Hosting its still possible to find small hosting centres just remember to avoid the big boys 1&1, Pipex, etc.
Obviously the site itself can be hosted on good Linux systems and open source software, just remember to avoid Fedora (RedHat) and SUSE (Novell) one thing you might have not thought about your Feedburner, and Google Analytics will have to be put to one side.
Search Engines
Sorry these are all out, at least the big 3 indeed to be truthful to the goal we probably need to block them totally so out with your robots.txt file.
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Yahoo! Slurp
Disallow: /
User-agent: msnbot
Disallow: /
Without search engine traffic we will have to rely on other forms of advertising the obvious answer is social media!
No StumbleUpon
Sacrilege I know but life without the man includes life without StumbleUpon which of course is owned by Ebay it also means life with out PayPal again an Ebay company. Interestingly a quick search for ways to stop people sending traffic from StumbleUpon returned virtually no results but fear not we can use HTACCESS to send this unwanted traffic away.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (stumbleupon.com) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.stumbleupon.com [R,L,NC]
Ok that’s sorted the StumbleUpon traffic it’s now being sent back to StumbleUpon of course thinking with our marketing head we perhaps would want to send it to a page explaining the idea of not getting traffic from “The Man” and with a link for them to find their way back!
Digg
Tricky one this is Digg owned by the man? I think not so it’s safe to market their maybe an article on how to block the evil corporations and “The Man” would go down well just a thought.
Propeller
No chance with it’s Netscape, AOL, Time Warner, Google owners this is clearly the sort of corporation we are looking to avoid so no Propeller traffic once again we will want to redirect users. Normally we would have to come up with some complex strategy to still gain benefits from these links to help our search engine strategy but for once this is not an issue as we blocked them at the start.
Myspace/FaceBook
Sorry News corp but you are the sort of people we want to avoid as for Facebook with a turnover of $15 billion according to Wall Street Journal and with investments from Microsoft and at least 3 major Venture Capital groups looks like your out to.
Looks like the man is pretty widespread but let’s not despair all is not lost we live in the age of web 2 where every kid and his programmer have an idea and the number of start-ups are immense it is still pretty easy to drive some traffic without going to the big corporations.
But why do it?
We are creatures of habit it is worth looking at other sources simply to have a backup strategy it’s also good to support new ideas what is new today may well be the norm tomorrow so it’s better to be in on the ground floor.
But the spirit of independent entrepreneur is being eroded once it was about coming up with a great idea marketing it and amazing people. Now its come up with a concept, get large venture capital company to fund your lunches with Google’s reps.
The next step
First off all I am not advocating giving up traffic sources, or blocking Google on your sites but I am passionate about supporting the little guys who are just like me. So I do plan on setting up a “Man” free site with the whole purpose of finding new traffic methods and ideas.
If you got any ideas or if you think that I was being lenient by claiming Digg was not “The Man” why don’t you let me know below!
p.s Dave Gorman book and DVD is available from his site and Good retailers as is his GoogleWhack stage show DVD (Not suitable for children) if you take nothing from this post go read the books and watch the DVDs!
Posted in Rants, social media | 10 Comments »
Thursday, December 20th, 2007


Hello everybody who voted in the Open Web Awards hosted by Mashable.
Back in November Mashable presented their Open Web Awards and invited Collective Thoughts to be one of the Judges. The Open Web Awards is the first ever online, open collaborative awards event, to recognize the best online communities representing web 2.0
We would like to anounce the overall “people’s choice” winners.
Mainstream and Large Social Networks = Facebook
Applications and Widgets = Flock
Social News and Social Bookmarking = Digg
Social Search = Mahalo
Sports and Fitness = ESPN
Photo Sharing = Flickr
Video Sharing = YouTube
Start Pages = Netvibes
Places and Events = Meetup
Music = Last.fm
Social Shopping = Woot
Mobile = Twitter
Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks = FilmCrave
Thank you to everyone who participated with us in this event.
Posted in social media | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 6th, 2007

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Social Media. Love, Love, Love, Obsessed, Love Social Media. I’ve been very serious about Social Media and the amount of time I’ve spent doing it daily for the past 6+ months. It didn’t take me long to realize that Social Media has a lot of similarities to High School.
Popular Crowds
Every High School has their popular crowds and Social Media is no exception. Getting into the Popular Crowd can be tough, but we all have heard of the Perks of once we get accepted into it.
Clubs
We all remember Drama Club, Ski Club, Chess Club, Math Club, Wrestling Club, blah, blah, blah. Social Media has Clubs too…. Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, StumbleUpon. Some clubs are more popular than others. We might like all of them, but we don’t have the time to participate in all of them. So, we pick our favorite Clubs and participate in those Clubs the most.
The Bad Boys
Oh boy, did my School have some Bad Boys!! I’m positive all High Schools do. These were the guys who were rebels. They would push the limits. I was always fascinated with the bad boys. Sure, they made me nervous, but there was something about them that made me want to get to know them better. Social Media has the Bad Boys as well. These are bloggers that write whatever is on their mind at the time. They are not out to hurt anybody, but you can feel their emotions in every single one of their controversial posts.
Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies
I wish I could say that when I was in High School I was popular, but I can’t…. I was a total Goodie-Goodie. Mostly out of fear of my mother, but whatever. I was a total Nerd!! The Rule Breakers were those kids who, well, broke the rules. They smoked in the bathroom, they were always in detention, and most often they were skipping classes. Well, in Social Media we have the Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies too. But, in Social Media we call them Black Hats and White Hats. Social Media wouldn’t be the same without them.
Parties
High School Parties…. the closest I was ever to one was seeing them in movies. I told you…. I was a total Nerd. But, I heard High School Parties rule!! Ok, I went to High School in the 80’s. Do they still say, "Rule"? In Social Media there are Conferences. There is a Major Party going on right now, PubCon, and I’m totally missing it. Can’t blame this one on my mother, but I am totally going to get to one of these Parties, Mom!!
Peer Pressure
I don’t think I have to explain to any of you that there is a ton of Peer Pressure that teens face in High School. We have all been there. I vividly remember the amount of pressure that I was faced while I attended High School and for that reason, among others, I don’t think I would ever want to go back to High School again. Social Media has there own Peer Pressure as well. The pressure surrounding the Social Media community is a bit different, but the pressure feels the same. The Emails, Instant Messages and Shouts to Vote-up, Thumbs-up, and Submit posts are insane.
It can be intense. I’ve reached my 200 friends limit on StumbleUpon and I started to clean house. You couldn’t imagine the emails I received asking why I am no longer a friend with whoever? Are you kidding me? I only got rid of people that hadn’t produced activity in a long time or that I no longer had anything in common with. UGH!! Peer friggin Pressure!!
Gossip
Ahhh, High School Gossip… The who’s dating who, who skipped school to meet their boyfriend, who cheated on who!! Standard Gossip from all High Schools. Well, Social Media has their own gossip….. Facebook, baby!! Gotta love it!! In one day’s time on Facebook I can find out who body slammed who, who got dry humped, where someone is right now and what they are doing, and who drunk dialed who. I can get my fill of gossip and not even feel guilty for it. Well, maybe a little…. after all, I probably could be doing something much more productive. But, it’s called social networking for a reason, right?
Just as with High School we are all trying to find our spot that we fit into with Social Media. It’s a ton of fun, a bit stressful at times, the pressure can be intense, but I wouldn’t change it for the World.
Posted in social media | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

Last night, before sitting down to power through some serious social media activity, it really hit me.
I told myself that I need to blog something because my Alexa rank was slipping.
Alexa Rank?? What??? Am I insane???
When I started looking at my latest blogging performance, I noticed that my posts have been much shorter lately on social media. Much less than when I would primarily write about blogging tips and starting a blog.
Then, I started to look at some of my daily social media activities:
- Reading RSS feeds of my favorite blogs (I hate RSS, even full feed - but they are a necessary evil. Still, I try to actually read blogs that I like)
- Finding interesting content
- Submitting interesting content
- Checking stats
- Friending people on MyBlogLog
- Responding to my own comments
- IM conversations with people all over the globe (read: no sleep if I wanted to talk to all of them all the time)
- Write a few posts (some start to finish, some partial thoughts) and coming up with post ideas
- Prepare for blog interviews
- Submit stories to several social networks
- Save bookmarks on del.icio.us
- Stumble some sites
- Sphinn some stories
- Comment on other blogs
- Perpetuate poke, superpoke, vampire, and slayer wars on Facebook
- Ask others for Sphinn votes. (No, scratch that)
- Twittering, since everyone wants to know up to the minute details about my cat? Newsflash: I don’t have a cat.
Wow, all these activities are really fragmenting. Not super time consuming, as you can multitask, but fragmenting. Like 20 tabs up in Firefox and other apps all over the place fragmenting.
Can we really multitask as well as we think? Kathy Sierra, one of my favorite bloggers ever, would argue that we cannot multitask effectively. (By the way Kathy, if you read this - please, please return to blogging. The world needs you).
So, does this mean that I’m out of the social media space? No way! In fact, expect to see much more from me social media wise very soon
What’s the plan then, you ask? Easy. Instead of suffering from social media overload, look at a few other disciplines and tips for help:
1 - Focus. Getting hit from different IM’s, especially from offline ones when first signing in can really send you off in different directions. Actually turn off IM once in a while. I’ve tried this off and on over the last week or so, and some people were actually concerned
2 - Sleep. Whenever I get tired, but always wake up at the same time (for me, this is 6am). I first saw this on Evan Williams’ blog but it’s originally from Steve Pavlina
3 - Balance. Whether you have a physical / sports, religious / spiritual, art, or whatever outlet - use it. I’m personally a very religious person, and am glad that I am.
4 - Stop talking about social media to people that don’t care about it. Try not to talk everyone’s ear off about social media that isn’t in the space. My apologies to all family and friends that still don’t know what I do, but see that I’m clearly excited about it
You know that guy that walks around with the hands free that looks like he’s talking to himself? Annoying, right? Don’t be him.
5 - Family time. Whether you’re an 18 year old social media pro or someone with a wife and kids, your family likes you. Walk away from the computer for a few minutes. You might notice that your kids have grown since you last looked at them
6 - Cross pollinate your brain. Find something opposite of social media to do for a while to let the social media parts of your brain recharge. You’re an SEO? Go do SEO (non-social media) work for your clients. You’re a zookeeper? Well, feed those seals already. They can’t live on Diggs alone!
Learn some new skills or enhance ones that you already have.
7 - Unplug. Do something that’s not in front of the computer (since you’ll be tempted to Stumble it if it is something good). Read a book, watch a movie, do some knitting, cook, eat, play a game, jump out of a plane - whatever. A friend of mine even went so far as to go into an underwater cage where folks from above throw food down so that Great White Sharks try to get into your cage. He says it’s a rush, but I think I’ll read a book.
It’s fine to engage in social media snacking. Just don’t lose sight that life is the main course.
Posted in productivity | 46 Comments »