Another micro-blogging tools: Plurk

EVERYONE is just talking about Twitter, however it isn’t the only one micro-blogging tool.

I’m introducing you a different style micro-blogging: Plurk.
Twitter shows the messages like a stack, i.e the newest message comes on the top, while Plurk uses a timeline to show when the messages coming in.

This is how Twitter showing the message:

And this is how Plurk showing the message:

One of the features of Plurk is the timeline, a user can clearly see the time point of an event by the timeline chart as the picture shown. Yes I know that Twitter shows the date & time as well, but the way it shows is just shown on the bottom of the event. Well I can’t say which one is better, but to me, I prefer Plurk way. (because I’m lazy?)

Another difference is the responses. On Twitter, the responses that your friends sent to you can only be seen by you! You followers don’t know what other people have answered to you.

This picture shows the responses after the author posted a question:
(picture comes from the internet)

Plurk is different, you are able to know what others have answered:

This is captured from my Plurk account, ‘stanjuly’ is my username, and I can see my friend ulin’s responses from others. Also, others can see what my friends have answered to me as well!

So what means for this difference?

It means everyone can benefit from the whole conversation. NOT just you.
We may have some experiences that we found the answers from someone else’s Q&A, and we didn’t even post a question!
This is what and how Plurk makes the differences from Twitter. And I would say that Plurk’s conversation style towards to the concept of Web 2.0 more closely.

Try to use Plurk and you may find more interesting stuff.

Psychologist: Facebook Makes You Smarter, Twitter Makes You Dumber

SEE the news from here and read another blog‘s comments which trackbacks the news .

The main idea of this article is that:

While Facebook apparently expands the working memory and therefore “enhances intelligence” because the mind has to work in keeping up with one’s 500 friends, Twitter does not deserve such glowing praise.

Many people do not agree with this statement, and I don’t think that the arguement is fully correct either. Because it may depend on different people, countries and even education environment. Anyway, it may not affect the brain too much though.

Using Twitter

FRANKLY, I had used Twitter long time ago, but it was somehow annoied and bored to tell everyone ‘what I am doing now’.
I forget my original Twitter account, so I create a new one: stanjuly.

The question now is ‘Is Twitter useful or a waste of time?‘
Well, as I mention at the first sentence, I was fad up with telling the world my status and my thought at the moment. It was very interesting and fresh at the beginning, and truely I cannot deny this. Also, I was not interested in knowing others’ status and actions (They are not my businese!! LOL).
Thus I would like to say that Twitter is just a waste of time to me.

However, Twitter has been using properly  in the recent months, and these events are much respectable than my tiny complaint. Twitter is no longer a social  tool, it becomes a rapid networking tool for helping communication in crises and disasters. It runs much quickly than the traditional media as well.

For instance, a number of immediate information and photographs were posted via Twitter when the US aircraft incident in January and the terror attacks in Mumbai, India.

In June 2009 Iran crisis, Twitter not only played a role of providing immediate news, but also a communications medium. (See Tehran Bureau)

Moreover, the super typhoon Morakot attacked Taiwan at 8 August 2009 which caused serious flood in the southern Taiwan. As the traffic failure in several area, it is difficult to know which places need assistance, food and equipment. Therefore many users utilise Twitter to provide information. (See Taiwanfloods)

Although both of Twitter and Plurk micro blogs can be used for providing immediate information rather than just web social, these platforms still have the risks such as system crash or fake information. Thus, Twitter and other related industories should only focus on the improvement of technical stuff, and the users/news providers should be responsible for their own opinion and entries.