10 reasons why Twitter is better than Plurk

Posted by Ben on December 03, 2008 | Permalink | Hits: 701 

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Image by Patrick Haney.

This is the second of a two-part series. In part one, we looked at why Plurk is better than Twitter. To keep things balanced, this post looks at why Twitter is better than Plurk.

1. Simplicity.

Twitter may lack some features that Plurk has, but as a result, Twitter is very simple.

To draw a comparison, think of commenting on a blog and how it compares to posting on a forum. Commenting on a blog is usually easier.

As with anything, once you get used to Plurk, it isn't difficult to use. But the learning curve is greater with Plurk than it is with Twitter. I'm a technical person, so I sit and learn stuff if I want to, but not everyone is technical.

2. More people use it.

A lot of people are on Twitter. OK, so if you have a lot of people on your list, that's a lot to read, but I doubt anyone is going to sit for a long time reading every tweet. It's like trying to read every blog post. Too much new stuff is being said for you to keep up with everything.

I've noticed a lot of Twitter users who follow thousands of people. On Plurk that's not as common. Usually, people follow 100-200 people. In theory, I'd prefer not to follow more than that on Twitter, but if you can interact with a massive community of users - why not? Even if most of them don't seem to talk back... maybe I'm just boring. Of course, if they all talked back, I'd be in trouble!

3. It's less of a time-drain.

I'm sure people find ways to use up loads of time on both Twitter and Plurk. And I'm sure we all have days when there just isn't that much we want to reply to. It goes in peaks and troughs.

Either way, I've found that Plurk can be much more of a time-drain than Twitter. It's like a web forum in that respect. Discussions can go on and on for a long time, which is fun, but then you look at your watch... oops, another hour just passed. Whereas on Twitter, it seems easier to hop on, chat for a bit, reply to a few people, then log off.

Maybe it's just me, but Twitter seems like a place to go if you have something specific to say, while Plurk is a good way to have a conversation and watch how different people interact. Depending on my mood, both are fine with me. I'm sure they foster a totally different style of usage though, because while I switch between the two from one day to the next, it's rare that I have a day when I use both services excessively. It's usually one or the other. (Fickle, aren't I?)

4. You get an email notification when you get a direct message.

Now this is just good sense. There are so many blogs, forums and social networks that we can't be expected to check all of them daily. For some time, I've relied on notification emails to tell me when I have a new message or some other "activity" to check in on.

Then again, these notifications have a tendency to fill up your inbox in a relatively short space of time. Using filters in Gmail can help to organise things a bit better, but if I'm just filtering stuff and not reading it, wouldn't it be better to stop it at the source?

I do find it useful to get an email when someone sends me a direct message on Twitter. Plurk doesn't provide this functionality. However, if I'm on Twitter anyway, the email usually comes after I've read the message. Maybe this would seem more beneficial if I didn't have my email open all the time!

5. Old discussions don't keep getting bumped up.

On Twitter, the messages may come through faster than you can read them, but it's not all bad - the tweets you don't want to read will be scrolled off pretty quickly.

Plurk is nice for reminding you when a discussion has new replies, but some discussions just refuse to die. Still, that's what the "mute" feature is for.

Endless "re-tweets" can get annoying too. If this becomes a problem, it's probably best to look at changing who you follow. Some people just talk too much. Present company excluded.

6. As tweets are separated, search engines index them all.

As far as I can tell, each individual tweet is indexed by search engines (unless your timeline is private). On Plurk, the discussion can be indexed, but not the individual replies.

Is this really a benefit? Well, it depends on your tweeting habits. Let's say someone asks for details of which content management systems other people use and like. If the people replying are really good at writing short reviews, just one tweet could very quickly tell a potential user if the system is for them. Of course, the usefulness of the tweet depends heavily on how it's written.

On Plurk, as the discussion is indexed, you'd be able to see all of the replies within the context of the original question. This may sound better until you realise that a lot of people may well be saying the same thing. If 90 people say "use WordPress" and only 10 people suggest alternatives with reasons as to why, that's a lot of "noise" you have to sift through to find the more interesting comments. On Twitter, if you didn't search for WordPress, you wouldn't find those comments at all.

The Plurk would give you a good idea of how many people recommend WordPress, but let's face it, even 90/100 positive responses is only a majority out of the people who you know and who posted a reply. Their needs may be totally different to yours.

7. Greater visibility when replying to someone.

Replying on Twitter by using @username means your reply will be more visible to the other person. On Plurk, you can do the same thing and it links the username automatically - but there doesn't seem to be much point, as there's no way to keep track of replies. You can see the Plurks where you've responded, but not the Plurks where someone's addressed you by username.

A private Plurk might work, but that's a private message, and private Plurks are easier to miss than a direct message on Twitter. One-to-one private Plurks are grouped with all the other private Plurks - there's no "inbox" - so this method isn't ideal. Plurk needs an inbox!

8. Fewer quirks/bugs.

Plurk isn't that buggy, and Twitter has had its fair share of downtime. But I've found a few recurring bugs in Plurk that only go away when you refresh the page. Other users have reported the same issues so I know it's not just me. A couple of bugs in Plurk that I can think of:

• When clicking on one Plurk then clicking a second one while the first is still opening, somehow the Plurks get broken into two pieces and you can't click anything anymore.
• Replies show up twice, or not at all - this seems to come and go, but it's a major pain when it "comes"!

Twitter is simpler (see #1) so it seems to suffer from a lot less bugs.

9. Things don't change around as much.

I actually don't mind change, so the lack of new stuff at Twitter frustrates me. But I am probably in the minority on that one. Most (read: non-technical) people get confused and frustrated when things change around all the time.

On Plurk, it does get confusing when they change whether clicking to view the new responses takes you to the oldest one or the newest one. I seem to recall this went back and forth a couple of times, which was REALLY confusing. Just when you get used to a change - it changes again!

And while I do like most of the changes included at Plurk, the "ding" when a new Plurk appears has to be one of the most annoying changes I've ever come across.

Sometimes, sitting still isn't a bad thing. People keep signing up for Twitter even though they don't have all the features that Plurk has. It would be nice to have a few changes, but invariably they will lead to confusion and bugs.

10. The lack of karma.

On Plurk, karma increases as you participate more - to a point. Too much Plurking can decrease your karma. And not enough Plurking can do the same.

This is absurd. Surely by not using the service you're already getting a penalty in the sense that people are not seeing your comments? The same goes for not writing new blog posts for an extended period of time - people may just give up on your blog. That should be enough of a penalty.

I like that Plurk karma gives you things such as extra smilies and more customisation options, but penalising people for doing other things is just going to encourage people to Plurk for the sake of it.

Twitter doesn't have karma, so it doesn't suffer from the problems associated with it.

So which is better?

It depends on what you want to do. I use both sites, but I prefer Plurk. I like that I am more likely to find someone on Twitter than Plurk, but Plurk has more of a community-feel.

Even with sites like TwiTip saying you shouldn't only use Twitter for announcing new posts, I just don't find Twitter comes close to Plurk when you want to have a conversation with a few people over a number of comments.

For me, community is about groups and how multiple people interact - it's not all about how one person interacts with loads of others. Twitter seems difficult to keep up with even when I follow less than 200 people. Plurk is fun.

What do you think? Which service do you prefer, and why?

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Comments on 10 reasons why Twitter is better than Plurk

5

Ben | December 04, 2008 | Ben's home page | 207 comments

Thanks for the comments guys. It seems opinion is quite divided between the two. I'd guess that a lot of Twitter users haven't even heard of Plurk, but I'm not sure how many people would be able to use both. We can't spend all day online! ;) (well, we can, but certain sites may be used more than others)

7

Ben | December 05, 2008 | Ben's home page | 207 comments

Bas, I have used Twhirl before. I like the interface, but it doesn't solve enough of the problems with the web interface to make me want to use it.

In Twhirl, if you get a lot of tweets at once (which is not uncommon), everything else is scrolled away. This is the same as the web interface. But in Twhirl, I also found that I couldn't see all of the latest tweets if they went above a certain number, and had to go to the web interface to see more. I found the sound notification annoying, this applies to Plurk as well.

Twhirl does seem to be better in terms of showing @ replies where your name isn't at the beginning, and for removing the need to manually refresh a web page.

Honestly, Twitter and Plurk are not sites that I could sit on all day. I use them in short bursts (I do allow time for replies) and then go to do other things. Sometimes, simple is better. And I'm not someone who installs a lot of desktop software. I prefer to keep my PC as clean as possible and do most things in my web browser.