A New Social Media Craze

Twitter started the 'micro blogging' craze by asking the question "What are you doing now?"

Millions of people have responded by joining up, and answering the question in 140 characters or less. The serviced has been enhanced along the way by the addition of features such as being able to reply.

Other improvements have included the ability to send 'tweets' via applications such as Twhirl, via cell phones, as well as by using instant messaging services such as Gtalk.

Recently though, some new players have arrived on the scene.

There are quite a number, but I am only going to mention two of the newcomers, and will concetrate on one of those two.

The first is Identi.ca - a rather spartan looking site, but one that is showing a lot of promise. More of a Twitter look alike than some thing new, this will appeal to Twitter users who are sick of the down time that Twitter experiences.

The great thing about this site is that it is 'open source', meaning that a lot of people are able to contribute to it's development, and so improvements will come thick, and fast over the next little while!

I'm Ozegold on Identi.ca if you wish to add me.

The flavor of the month for me is Plurk!

To me, this site has definitely put the 'social' back into social media!

The original concept of micro blogging is still there, but with a whole lot of new features. Apart from being able to reply, users are able to conduct conversations across different time zones, simply by following the time line.

The conversations are a great way of linking into friends networks, and getting to know other plurkers.

Slightly - ok - very addictive, the site comes with a range of emoticons that help to enhance the experience.

The number of emoticons increases along with karma - which grows organically as you plurk, add friends, and get involved with others on the site.

The downside of Plurk!

Yes, there is a downside unfortunately, and it is the same one that is common to Twitter, Stumbleupon and other social networking sites!

The problem is spam.

I have noticed quite a few marketers who feel that these sites are there simply to display and promoe their websites.

While I don't object to anyone leaving their link, or sharing a post, I do get offended when these sites are used simply as a broadcast service.

To me, there are plenty of alternatives for website promotion, and social media sites are social. Great for talking about what you do, and creating a buzz, but simply leaving your link over and again is wrong.

I noticed one person today plurked the same message a number of times.

When I checked his profile, I found that he'd made over 5 times more plurks than responses to other people.

This is hardly what I would call engaging and interacting with others.

To find out more about Plurk, you can check my friend Teeg's site.

Why not check Plurk, and me out here!