As a quick followup to my last post on my experimentation with Plurk I thought I’d do a quick analysis of the top 10 Plurk Users (as currently rated on the Interesting page). They are rated there on a basis of their ‘Karma’. There’s no explicit definition of the way that they calculate Karma except:
“Your karma score is directly influenced by you and your friends Plurk activity. The more active you are, the more points you’ll get. Using various features of Plurk such as instant messaging or uploading a profile image will also help. Invite your real friends to boost your karma!”
So lets look at some of the average statistics of the top Plurkers and see what seems to count towards a high Karma:
- # of Plurks – 838
- # of Plur Responses – 3477
- # of Friend Invites – 10.2
- # of Profile Views – 689
- # of Friends – 82
- # of Fans – 56
- Length of time on Plurk – 3 months
- Also worth noting – all of the top 10 had logged in and been active within the last 24 hours. They are all active in the short term as the long term
I was a little surprised by a couple of the numbers. The description of Karma seems to indicate that inviting friends would count for a fair bit – but the average of the top 10 is 10. The most any of them had invited successfully was 20. Having said that – the 9th ranked Plurker was well under average with # of plurks, responses, profile views, fans and length of time but had the most friend invites so perhaps they do count for something.
I didn’t even know it existed til today, nevermind 3 months ago!
Way too much fun though ;)
Same as marylin. Seems young, maybe its a chance for interested folks to get in early and build a really strong web profile. Been thinking of this as an emerging oppotunity ie building very strong profiles on social media sites and leveraging them.
I think there’s a huge advantage if you get in early so this may be a chance, doubt that I have the time personally but some one can latch on to it.
What do you think?
Plurk is dangerous.
It’s one of the most engaging social media apps out there, in that you can make friends and converse with them instantly.
The Karma aspect (sorry I don’t know the exact calculations behind this) adds another dimension – gaming i.e. do something to receive a reward such as a star against your name or more customisation options.
I haven’t felt this stuck on something since World of Warcraft…
I signed up with Plurk yesterday to check it out. It seems like a fun tool and I will have to test it a little more to see if I will stay with it.
I think there are some interesting features that aren’t available on Twitter and also some things they need to improve on, but if they do, it will be much more useful and easier to navigate than twitter.
Darren sent me an invite two days ago and I can’t even figure out how to accept. Uhm…I’m trying to like Plurk!!!
I like this site Plurk.com, this being my first time going through this site. I strongly believe it will take me around a day or two to complete go through site.
This site’s got Cool design and nice concept too.
Only time will tell if this application is here to stay or not. Cheers.
Plurk is addictive and I didnt know plurk existed until recently…The whole US is waking up to the plurk and its servers are already feeling the pain
Darren — I’m beginning to think all these super geeks are overrated. At what point do they figure out how to engineer a site that works 20 consecutive hours? :)
I’m becoming more comfortable with twitter, and have enjoyed the give and take when I have the time. But when I joined plurk, the next twitter I read said plurk was down.
What’s the problem in your view?
I can’t seem to get on to Plurk either. I actually went to register several days ago, but the server was responding at a terrible rate. Eventually I gave up.
I tried again today and I am not able to get on. Maybe I will try again later, but in my opinion a service like this should not be so hard to access.
Cheers,
The Tech Juice
Plurk…I have never heard of this social network until I read this blog.
I keep hearing new social sites emerging online.
I am now beginning to wonder if the time and effort invested into these social sites, hoping to increase or improve the number of visitors to your blog, is worth it. Maybe, most people may find all their time is now being consumed by interactions with numerous social sites.
Thanks for diving into the karma. I was actually impressed that they kept the roof low and/or the calculation miserly. Too many of htese point systems rocket up to the thousands based on each activity. I posted a few plurks and added 4 people and almost got to the 2nd level.
And to the other commenter- yes this is pretty addictive. I love the interface!
I think the problem with Plurk is that conversation gets lost very easily. I’d like to see them push plurks forward to the current time when they receive a comment. Right now, it’s extremely hard to find items of interest over an hour old. For now I’m still basking in friendfeed :)
Doug Brooks
BTW I’m dougbrooks on plurk and pbrush on friendfeed.
Plurk needs to get with the program and do some changers to their user interface, the problem is that when the average user visits the site, they spend 30 seconds trying to figure out what it is, they don’t figure out what it is, and they leave. When they figure out that their biggest competitor (Twitter) has enough info on the homepage to get the basic jist of it in about 15-20 seconds, they’ll fix it and hopefully make Twitter improve.
@Michael, I agree totally with his post about how if one is so stop by Twitter the first time I makes sense aright away.
In this moment with my karma, my friends etc. I’m in the top 10 interesting plurkers :-)
I am excited about PLURK – still exploring its potential, but excited about the way it ‘threads’ conversations together and has the potential to scale…
Time will tell.
I’m finding Plurk very addictive. I like getting to ‘chat’ to people whose blogs I might not normally find though.
Plurk is great….
Plurk is, to say in the least, very addictive.
I can’t believe people are still comparing Twitter to Plurk. In the past three days I’ve been a member of Plurk, Plurk was down once and Twitter was down the majority of those days. Plurk is fairly new and already has loads of awesome features that Twitter can’t even dream of living up to after its length of existence.
There really is no comparison.
Right now as I can see the Karma Algorithm haven’t changed at all. Maybe soon well also figure this out and probably well be having the right computation. But why would we bother?? Plurk is fun and fun and fun and more fun!!!
Kelly,
What does Plurk offer that Twitter doesn’t?