Get Plurk-ed! The New Bite Sized Blog Site

In my wanderings the other day I found Plurk a cute little site that gives you an alternative way to post your bite sized bits of info on the net.

It's spreading like wildfire through the web 2.0 community.

What is Plurk?

According to the Plurk user guide: "A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life, and follow the events of the people that matter to you, in deliciously digestible short messages called plurks."

I takes about 5 minutes tops to sign-up and get yourself a profile and from there you can import your friends and start 'Plurking'. Just like other sites like this (Twitter) it allows you only limited character space (140 characters), but allows you to 'Plurk' about everything and anything.

Plurk has an emphasis on actions as opposed to a clean slate message, and each user is offered their 'action option' via a drop down list with actions such as is, thinking, was, asks and similar. Each "plurk" is posted to a visual timeline that includes drop down threads for replies. The service also offers "cliques" for plurk distribution and various privacy options.

Great for those of us who are marketing information, websites or services. It takes a couple of minutes a day to update a few new Plurks onsite and allow the rest of the world to read your plurks.

There are some interesting twists with the Plurk approach. There's an interactive timeline that shows threads and makes it easier to follow a conversation.

Is this a business tool? Not really sure, any more than I am about Twitter, but obviously lots of people are ahving some success using cute sites like this. Is it fun to use? Definitely. Plus, there are game like features to it that make you want to invite more friends, post/plurk more often and get more involved.

Want to see more? My Plurk Page

Your bite size Plurks are recorded on a timeline which I have to admit takes a little getting used to, but it's fun and quick and just a bit quirky. Right up my alley... see a pic of a timeline below.



NEW! You can even get the new 'Sidebar' widget for Plurk see Link below "5 Great Plurk Tools" courtesy of TwisterMc!

Go check it out and let me know what you think, I would really love your feedback?

Linking to other Plurk users when Plurking - just add a @ in front of the username whom you want to link to. If you want to link to my profile in your plurk, then just do it as @AnnieRob

Making text in your plurk bolded - A single word or few words together can be bolded by just adding double asterisk ** in front and back of the text. For example - **great** will make the word great bolded.

Making text in your plurk italic - Similar to the bold option, but have to add just one asterisk in front and end of the text. - *great*

How to add image to a plurk - Easy, no codes needed. Just include the direct URL of the image in the plurk. And it comes as a small icon in the plurk message, which opens there itself if you click on it.

Video embedding in the plurk - Again you don't need the the whole embed code, you can just place the video URL in the plurk, and the video starts along.

Add a link in the plurk with anchor text - This one is done by many people to make their plurk look smaller and better. By typing "url (title)" full url and title like this: http://net-proinfo.com (Net-ProInfo) you get a text link.

Moving along the timeline - You can just scroll with your mouse wheel, or right or left arrow keys to move along the timeline and read other's plurks.

See replies to continue a converstation - In an active conversation, leave that box open to see replies in real time when they come in.

To find more friends - monitor active conversations of your interest and request friends from those who participate.

Searching for people or conversations - Often overlooked. You can search for people or Plurks by keyword

ACCESSING THE PLURK CSS EDITOR
My Profile [edit] -> Customise Profile -> [CSS text area]

MAIN BACKGROUND
body {
background: #000000 url(url_of_your_image);
background-attachment: fixed;
}
TIMELINE BACKGROUND
#timeline_holder {
background:#000000 url(url_of_your_image);
}
FURTHER BACKGROUND CONTROLS:

Repeating: no-repeat OR repeat-x OR repeat-y

Align: 'top', 'right', 'bottom', 'left'

Used as such:
#timeline_holder {
background:#000000 url(url_of_your_image) no-repeat top left;
}
YOUR PLURK DASHBOARD
#plurk-dashboard {
background: #000000;
}

KARMA COLOR/COLOUR
#karma {
color: #000000;
}

YOUR PLURK DASHBOARD LINKS
#plurk-dashboard a {
color: #000000;
text-decoration: none;
}

#plurk-dashboard a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}

NOTE ON COLOR:
All the color(s) I have used in this post [#000000;] are set to BLACK only. These numbers are called hexadecimal numbers and each when used with the '#' represent a colour. You can find a whole resouce of colors for your profiles here at (Colour Lovers).

Verbiage:
.q_freestyle { background: #000000; }
.q_loves { background: #000000; }
.q_likes { background: #000000; }
.q_shares { background: #000000; }
.q_gives { background: #000000; }
.q_hates { background: #000000; }
.q_wants { background: #000000; }
.q_wishes { background: #000000; }
.q_needs { background: #000000; }
.q_will { background: #000000; } .q_hopes { background: #000000; }
.q_asks { background: #000000; }
.q_has { background: #000000; }
.q_was { background: #000000; }
.q_wonders { background: #000000; }
.q_feels { background: #000000; }
.q_thinks { background: #000000; }
.q_says { background: #000000; }
.q_is { background: #000000; }

This is important to note that just like all the other CSS, these colour changes will only work on 'YOUR OWN' plurk profile. I would also like to add that the above CSS is thank to @janechin and her Plurkaholics Verbiage post and to @NotMuchMoreThanThis. (See links below)

UPGRADE THE SIZE OF YOUR RESPONSE TEXT BOX:
#input_small {
height: 75px;
}