Dancing About Architecture

The Value of Social Networking

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When you mention social networking to the uninitiated they see it as just a way to waste time online, but when used effectively social networking tools are an amazing way to exchange ideas and concepts in real time with a large number of people.

Twitter has the reputation of being one of the most inane social networking tools out there. Twitter asks the question, “What are you doing?” and most users will tweet about exactly what they are doing - “I am eating lunch” , “I am cleaning the cat’s litter tray”,” I am going to the bathroom”.   However, a growing number of users are using Twitter as a way to distribute information to a large amount of people.  Bloggers are discovering that it is a great way to announce a new posts to hundreds of potential readers. Also many people are using it as a way of reporting on industry conferences.  Recent pubcamps in Sydney and Melbourne have been broadcasted in 140 character bytes to hundreds of people who could not attend by those who were in attendence, complete with their thoughts about the information being presented.   It was Stilgherrian’s reporting on the Poltech conference in Canberra yesterday that made me realise how much I love being on the receiving end of this kind of information.  Poltech was a conference focusing on politicians and Web 2.0.  If there is a group of people out there with no idea how to harass and use the power of the internet, it is Australian politicians.  Stilgherrian, with his trademark sarcasm, reported on the clash of culture between the politicians and technology.  Thanks to Twirl, an Adobe air application for Twitter, I was able to receive pop ups on my screen of tweets from this event whilst I worked away. Whilst being in attendance would have been so much better, I still felt involved in the event.  The one aspect that Twitter falls down on is being able to have conversations about the information you receive.  You can reply to the original poster, but unless the other people who reply are on your friend’s list, you can not really talk to those who are also responding to the OP. This is where the new social networking tool Plurk really comes into play.

Plurk not only allows you to make 140 character posts like Twitter does, but it allows you to reply to those posts in one central location rather than spread throughout the timeline.  You can easily reply to those who have already replied to the post, even if they are not on your friends list.  This makes the discussion of ideas amazingly easy.  Last night I posted on Plurk that I was watching the ABC show, “The Gruen Transfer”.  One of my friends informed me that Gavin Heaton was plurking a running commentary on the show.  I went and friended Gavin who was generous enough to friend me right back, so that his commentary appeared on my timeline.  Each segment of the show had its own post to which the rest of us replied with our thoughts and feelings on the segment or responded to other people’s replies.  It allowed us to discuss a single issue without chasing the thread of discussion through all the other noise on Plurk.  It made watching “The Gruen Transfer” a much richer experience.

Where Plurk excels in discussing experiences, Friend Feed excels in discussing online content and with the introduction of rooms on Friend Feed finding online content and discussions on topics you are interested in is so much easier.  Whilst you may blog about an issue on your blog, Friend Feed allows the discussion of that issue to take place off your blog.  Whilst bloggers may be concerned about the fragmentation of discussions, there are many tools that now take the comments from Friend Feed and display them in the blog’s comments section.  Friend Feed releases information and discussions about the information from happening in one central spot and makes it much more accessible to people who normally not go to those destinations.  It is an amazing way to discover new blogs and to make connections within the niches you are interested in.

Social networking has evolved from mindless chatter to a powerful way to disseminate information.  It is becoming increasingly common for news about major world events to appear on social networking sites before it is picked up by mainstream media.  If you have not gotten involved in social networking, what are you waiitng for?

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Caution! Beagle Plurking

Last night I was on Plurk giving it a second chance when I plurked about how difficult it was to plurk with a beagle sitting on your left arm. Darren suggested that I give Rory her own Plurk account. I laughed it off but the idea went and twisted around in my brain for the rest of the night. This morning when I woke up it was there screaming, “Give Rory her own Plurk account!”. So in order to get some peace, I gave in and created a plurk account for Rory.

Therefore, if you want to stalk my beagle online she can be found plurking here. If you are new to Plurk click this link and once you sign up it will automatically make Rory your friend.

This is my gorgeous beagle Rory and her beloved toy Womble.

I can assure you that she will be plurking about her womble quite a bit. She LOVES her womble. If she wants to play, it is the first toy she picks up. If she notices you feeling down she will give you her womble and womble even gets to sit next to her whilst she eats her dinner. She will no doubt be plurking about sleeping, feeling hungry and stealing underwear as well.

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Giving Plurk a Second Chance

On Monday I wrote a very negative article about Plurk. However, since then I have been convinced to give it a second chance. I have been assured that all the problems I had with it on Monday have been fixed (for now anyway). So, I am back on Plurk.

I still hate the timeline, but I must admit that I really like that you can directly reply to someone’s plurk as shown in the screenshot below.

It means that every Plurk has the potential to turn into its own mini-forum and it really does foster conversations both with the original poster and with other commenters.

If you decide to give Plurk a try (or a second try), then click on this link and after you create an account, it will automatically add me as your friend. Does that make you want to sign up? *laugh*

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Should You Plurk?

What is Plurk?

Plurk describes itself as a place you can publish and share your thoughts, emo-ness, #^@%!%(& and loves. Plurk, like Twitter, is a microblogging site that lets you record your thoughts in 140 character chunks. Also like Twitter you can post your plurks directly on the site, via IM programs like MSN and AIM or from your mobile phone (not yet available).

Features of Plurk

One of the nicest features of Plurk is the ability to divide your followers into cliques and send message to a chosen clique rather than everyone on your followers list. Say your D&D gaming group is on Plurk, you can send a message to them only rather than letting everyone on your followers list how cool your half-orc thief is.

Another unique feature is the left to right scrolling time bar, rather than the typical top to bottom list as seen on most social networks. I am not entirely I like it, but it may be the case of the familiar versus the unfamiliar.

Also you can respond directly to someone’s Plurk and the responses to their Plurk are listed directly under the initial Plurk. A very nice feature indeed.

Annoyances

One of the annoying things about Plurk is that you must enter a last name. Unlike other applications that let you enter a ‘.’, Plurk demands you enter letters. For someone like me who does not use their real name on social networking sites, this means that your online identity has to now have a last name.

Another annoying thing is qualifies. Qualifies are words like is, was, thinks, feels and can be selected from the drop down list. You can choose freestyle and not use a qualifier, but having to choose from the drop down list rather than type in exactly what you want is irritating.

Also, you need to hover over someone’s plurk to see their whole message if it is more than about 30 characters rather then seeing the message in full. Meaning you can not just quickly scroll and read everything there is to read.

Whilst trying to add friends this evening to Plurk, I got the following error message, ” The server has either erred or is incapable of performing the required operation”. Umm… okay. Whilst I can understand a new service can have some hiccups, it is not filling me with confidence that one of the essential features of a social networking site is already having problems. The friends feature did come back briefly and then disappeared again. Basically it resembled a yo-yo for the entire time I was on the site.

One of my Twitter friends sent me an invite to Plurk, but when I clicked on her invite and then signed in to Plurk, it did not take me to her page, instead it took me to my own page. I still have no idea how to get to her page and add her to my friends list. I have tried adding the URL of her page to the Plurk page that I am signed in on but it signs me out if I do that. Now I consider myself a rather experienced user of the internet having been playing on here for the past 15 years and if I can’t work out how to add a friend from an invite, I have no idea how a novice user is going to figure it out. The only way I was able to add friends was to find someone I know on the main timeline and then click on their name and add them from there. I have still not been able to add my friend from Twitter on Plurk though. Sorry Erica.

Also while it says I can search for people on Plurk I am still yet to find the search bar on here.

So, should I Plurk?

No. Whilst there is some nice features of Plurk, the annoyances far outweigh the benefits. Whilst testing Plurk this evening, I have wanted to toss my laptop across the room on several occasions. Social networking sites should be easy and fun to use and Plurk fails on both at both of these things. Maybe Plurk will get their act together and make their application more user friendly, but until then, unless you are up for a challenge, stick to Twitter. Twitter might fall over occasionally as it goes through growing pains, but at least when it is up you don’t want to kill anyone.

If you do feel like a challenge and want to find me on Plurk, I am here, trying desperately to work out what the hell I am doing.

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STUB

Last night, I braved the cold and head out to STUB. STUB stands for the Sydney Twitter Underground Brigade and is a collection of seriously geeky guys and girls that are avid users of Twitter. I have seen the postings for a few STUB gatherings but have always been too scared to go. However, now I have connected on Twitter with a few more STUB members and the fact that my girlfriend and some of her work colleagues were going, I decided to just get over my fears and go.

I am extremely glad that I did because I meet some great people. I had a wonderful conversation with Warlach, WillHughes and Kimota about D&D, Magic The Gathering and Phone Condoms (best not to ask). KImota, Lelak and I then had a long discussion about Doctor Who, in particular the brand new season.

Unfortunately, there were quite a few people that I said brief hellos to but didn’t get to talk longer to like Alegrya and Goaldeebug. Definitely will have to catch with them for longer at the next gathering.

Late in the night, I found myself as part of a group lead by Stilgherrian having an amazing discussion about new media and how no one had quite figured out the direction it was heading in. I am nowhere near the calibre of geek that these guys were at, so I was absorbing everything they said like a little sponge, cause I just love new media. Hopefully I made intelligent enough comments that I didn’t give away my status as a low calibre geek.

Whilst there I ran into an interesting dilemma. At Blogger meetups I introduce myself as Riayn because my actual first name is so damn common that nearly every second blogger has it, including some really cool celebrity bloggers. However, at STUB quite a few people already knew me from the real world so I introduced myself most of time by my actual name. This lead to this exchange with one girl;

Me: Hi, I am <my actual name>

Girl: Are you <name of famous blogger>?

Me: No, sorry.

Girl: Oh * looks majorily disappointed*

She didn’t want to have anything to do with me after that. I tried to start a conversation, but she was so adamant not to talk to me that I quickly walked away. It just goes to prove that I should introduce myself as Riayn all the time, so that people don’t think that I might be someone really cool and famous in the blogosphere.

Other than that exchange, everyone was amazingly friendly and I had a great time chatting to everyone. If you are not on Twitter already, what are you waiting for? Jump on there and start Twittering. Just add friends of people you know, like me and you will soon get into the swing of it. It reminds me very much of the old IRC channels where everyone just sits around and chats about everything and nothing. I find it a great way to past the time during the slow times at work.

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