10 Minute Guide to Plurk – Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of the Guide to Plurk. If you missed part 1, you can find it here.

It didn’t take me long once I started using Plurk to realize that I needed karma. Okay, maybe I could actually live without it, but I definitely wanted some, I needed emoticons!

There are a few ways to gain karma on Plurk. One is to write plurks that others respond to (just remember to write 30 or less per day).

Another is to respond to others’ plurks. Inviting friends also adds karma (have I shared my link with you yet? ) as does making new friends who are already on Plurk.

The first thing I tried was transferring all my friends from Twitter. “This will be easy,” I thought as filled in my Twitter information, rubbing my hands with glee at thought of oodles of karma I’d get from adding friends.

Transferring friends from Twitter DOES NOT make you friends on Plurk, I discovered to my dismay. It doesn’t even send your friend a note asking them to confirm your friendship. Instead it adds you as a fan of theirs.

Now I mentioned yesterday how confusing Plurk can be about adding fans and friends. Here’s where the issue gets even murkier. Let’s say I look at my fan list and see Connie as a fan. Well, I know and like Connie, so I want to add her as a friend instead. She’s already a fan, so it’s a simple matter of just adding her, right?

I wish! Unlike every other social site I know of, we can actually be fans of each other…without being friends. Even if Connie is a fan, I have to ask to be her friend and she has to confirm our friendship. Clear as mud, right?

It’s actually not as bad as it sounds, once you start using it. Consider it a double opt in friendship, very similar to the ones you get whenever you sign up on a new mailing list.

After I finally figured out the whole twitter friends/fans thing and added a few real friends, I was ready to start writing some original Plurks and replying to other people’s Plurks. And in the process, make some new friends.

Ready to hear from some other Plurkers?

Felix118 said “I missed the tip on how to link names using the @ command….” If you’ve used twitter, this will be habit for you anyway. Which is actually how I discovered it. I made a twitter post on Plurk, and the @ in front of the name disappeared, but the name turned into a like to that person’s page.

If I Plurked:

says to @butterflylitgirl, How are you today? Hope your day has been wonderful!

What will appear is:

Teeg says to butterflylitgirl, How are you today? Hope your day has been wonderful!

Green_homemaker asked “is there a way to private message on Plurk? That’s my burning Question!”

I’ll admit, I had to ask this one too. Private messaging isn’t intuitive on Plurk (okay most things aren’t intuitive on Plurk).

Thankfully, when I asked how, Dalydose took pity on me, and explained how to do it. “Just click the down arrow next to someone’s username and the option will present itself.”

Sure enough, when I moused over a username, there was a small down arrow. Clicking it gave me some information about the person (in case I hadn’t visited their plurk page), the option to visit their profile, or see their list of friends. And, since yesterday, if you click the arrow on someone’s name, you also have the option to block that person.

Amie mentioned that she wasn’t sure “how to hyperlink text instead of posting urls.”

I can’t remember who it was that taught me how to do this. Wish I could remember so I could give them credit. On Plurk, if you want to link a url, first post your url, then add your link in parenthesis, like this:

I hope no one is disappointed. I just finished part 1 of the http://www.sucomments.com/2008/06/19/10-minute-guide-to-plurk-part-1/ (10 Minute Guide to Plurk). More tomorrow.

Which appears like this:

A nice thing about Plurk, and another huge difference between it and twitter, is that you’re not stuck plurking text. In fact, this is one of the most fun things about Plurk.

On Plurk, I can send a picture or YouTube video and you can see a tiny picture right there on the timeline! And if I use the parenthesis trick above, when you mouse over the picture, you’ll see the title I typed.

Even better, when you click on the picture, it doesn’t take you to another page. Instead, a window opens up and you can view the picture or video right on the page.

On Plurk, more than any other social site I’ve seen since sixdegrees, the saying, “the friend of my friend is my friend” is actually true.

The other day, Dr. Mani (whose blog I thoroughly recommend), joined Plurk. Wanting to help him get started, I introduced him, and within 5 minutes, 9 people had stopped by to say hi, most going on to add him as a friend!

Lest you think this was a special occasion, let me say I’ve introduced several others, every time with similar results. Everyone I’ve met on Plurk so far has been great!

Two more things and then the rest I’ll save for the next post.

RogueTess added the suggestion, “Use MUTE liberally.” Kirako seconded with “Ooh, another [suggestion] would be the muting ability. Not many people see that.”

With so many friendly people on Plurk, and so many from different time zones, it sometimes seems like a third of the plurks say “Good morning” or “Good night.” After repeating myself a couple times on one of these posts, I discovered a perfect use for the mute feature.

When you click on a plurk to reply, if you look to the right, underneath the original plurk, you’ll see a small pink “mute.” (Unfortunately (for this blog post) you can’t mute yourself though.)

I’m jealous! We don’t have Chick-fil-A here, so perfect mute example.

Clicking on this does not affect the status of the poster at all, it doesn’t even affect whether you can respond to the plurk. What it does is stops that plurk from notifying you when it updates. You can still read the updates if you want, but you won’t receive any notification of new responses. Which means if you mute after you greet someone, you won’t accidently repeat your greeting when you’re looking at new updates later.

I guess I should stop here and mention a little cream colored box that you’ll often see on the left side of the page, at the bottom of the scroll bar. Right now, the box is telling me that there are 2 new plurks I haven’t read yet, and 262 new responses. I can click either option in the box to view that option. New plurks will add to the timeline, but if you view responses instead, it will only show the plurks with new responses (ie none of the muted plurks).

Finally tonight, Natashcha suggests I mention “permalinking a plurk. I totally missed the link on the bottom for a long time.”

I did the same thing, Natashcha. And even after I saw it, I wasn’t quite sure what would happened when I clicked “plurk page” so hesitated to use it.

What happens is that the whole conversation goes to a new page with its own url.

You can share that url with friends, refer other plurkers to the conversation (thus allowing more than just your own friends list to reply to a post), bookmark it, and even add it to your RSS reader, which is what I do with plurks I want to save.

Believe it or not, there’s still a lot more about Plurk to discuss. Using cliques (which isn’t as high schoolish as the name implies), using Plurk with your cell phone, and tricks to make it easier to find something on the timeline, plus more Plurkers with questions or suggestions.

By the way, if you have a question about Plurk, feel free to ask it here in the comments or add me as a friend on Plurk and ask there, just make sure to let me know where the question is if I don’t happen to see it.