Tag: Plurk


6Jul

Things I’ve tried, too

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I keep registering to new services or apps almost every week. Since I first did the “Things I’ve tried” list in April, quite a number of new things have seen my type in my email address. If you’d like to see for yourself, go here:

  1. Twhirl, a Twitter client based on Adobe AIR, acquired by Seesmic and being improved more regularly since then. Still suffers from Twitter’s API request restriction which makes all clients slow once you have exceeded a certain number of proliferous followees.
  2. TweetDeck, just came in this weekend. Another AIR-based Twitter client that organises Tweets in columns, allowing for replies to be listed separately and offering grouping. It’s pretty much a full-screen thing, so requires more attention than Twhirl.
  3. Twibble, is a mobile Twitter client. It works nicely on my SonyEricsson, again with the API restriction in place. Downside is that you can’t click on links in your timeline and read stuff on your mobile browser. But Twibble guaranteed on-the-go entertainment during the Germany-Turkey Euro 2008 semi-finals when the TV signal from Basel failed several times in all of Europe.
  4. Brightkite, is a location-based social network that allows users to inform friends on the go where they are and what they are up to. It has a web-to-mobile integration with maps on the site. Currently, the mobile app does not work with carriers outside the US, so it’s pretty useless. Unless you want to send texts to the service to check in. Plazes, recently acquired by Nokia, does a better job with automated check-in and has more European/German users too. Anyway, LB SocNets are here to stay..
  5. Identi.ca, is a Twitter clone with a sleek interface but less features than the original. Might become a fallback option if the fail whale keeps appearing for ever and ever.
  6. Sixgroups call themselves “live community” which they indeed are. You’ll find my Sixgroup community bar on the top of this blog and I invite you to join my community. Integrating Sixgroups was a breeze (copy-paste of a bit of code) and setting up all the rest is as simple as anything. The cool thing about this is that you can build your own network of people around your personal content offering (i.e. this blog) and engage in discussion live as the Sixgroups drop-down menu offers live chat functionality – apart from the unmissable Twitter integration. Oh, and this is a German startup from Hamburg, which is always worth mentioning.
  7. TypePad is the legendary hosted blog service from Six Apart (my client at Hotwire) and I’ve set up a secondary blog (German only) to play with and get aquainted with the service.
  8. Plurk is a Twitter-like microblog service, I’ve written about here. Don’t use it much anymore as the critical mass is on Twitter (still).
  9. Telewebber was great fun during the Euro 2008 matches. People getting together to chat live about the game. More detail here in my previous post.
  10. Mento takes your bookmarks, much like del.icio.us, but with a more immediate community of friends. You can share links with just one friend if you like or publish more broadly. It’s integrated with del.icio.us, Facebook, Friendfeed, Ma.gnolia and Tumblr. Plus Twitter of course. A nice feature, building on the social factor is the “Mento Mix” that gives you a selection of links your friends have saved as a recommended reading. They have Firefox and IE plugins, too. I have a few invites, so just comment here to get one.

Up next: 2 weeks offline in Finland end of July. So 0.5, but I know I’ll love it.

31Mai

Blök? Plurk!

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I’m amazed once again how fast new services can get attention in these Twittertimes. Just yesterday, as it appears, a new microblogging service called Plurk.com started to make waves among the German Twitterati, half of my “following”-list registering right away and starting to play. Judging from other blog posts, Plurk seems to have been around since January, more recently opening up from closed beta, or so.

Plurk has something of Twitter (140 character messages, followers, friends) and Friendfeed (direct comments to “plurks”) and even allows for image and video embedding. The timeline displayed in the browser moves from left to right with most recent entries on the left. Each plurk indicates if it has responses. You can keep your plurks private or create “cliques” to have closed group plurk-parties.

Whether this service will take off or not is not the big question to me, it may, it may not. But it’s definitely a proof that there are more ways to visualise social-messaging-timelines and a great example for the viral mechanisms of the social web. Take a few key Twitterers (high follower numbers) and give them a new toy to play with – others will follow. Quite simple.

UPDATE: Cool, I was faster with this post than Mashable. Which really means something (just kidding)