To Plurk Or Not To Plurk

Critical Mass

Critical mass is necessary to sustain interest and revenue in any venture. It’s a sort of ’strength in numbers’ idea – you’ve got to have enough people, media coverage and a solid product in order to survive. 

This concept came to mind when Plurk, a microblogging site, launched last week.

I joined the site out of sheer curiosity and to see if it provided features that Twitter lacked, like notification of mutual followers/following. FYI, it doesn’t. 

My conclusion:

• Plurk does not offer me any microblogging feature that would draw me away from Twitter – that’s great that I can follow people and can design my interface (somewhat limited) but 
• Does the Internet really need another social networking site? I mean, c’mon folks! I’m getting a bit burned out from all this social networking – Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, the list goes on for days. It’s time to create something of more substance. 
• Plurk will need to achieve critical mass in order to rope in two important markets: loyal Twitter users and newbies.

Robert Scoble doesn’t seem to be a fan of Plurk either:

Reviews for Plurk – from several different articles – have been mixed, as have the opinions from the current Twitter community. While I don’t condone signing up for Plurk, I understand that there is no better way to learn than by doing, so go do!