I've heard about this, (and have been hesitant to join). Maybe I'll have to reconsider. Social networks have a way of pulling you from the desire to complete things :) - Do You KNOW Clarence?
As social networks go, GoodReads is pretty non-invasive. I use it to find new books to read and check up on reader reviews before I buy a book. Also, there are some great small press and podiobook authors who are on the site. It is interesting to see what they are reading. - Aram Zucker-Scharff
Aram, you've convinced me! I'll have to register tonight and see what's goin' down. - Do You KNOW Clarence?
I switched from LibraryThing to GoodReads because GoodReads actually had some people that I know on it. So far I've been happy there, the reviews/comments are decent, which is all I really want other than a way to log my reading. - brad sucks
"SuperNotecard is fast becoming the best way for novelists, biographers, researchers, and writers of every stripe to begin to craft their work using notecards." - looks like an interesting tool for mac based writers - via brad (as in sucks)... - mike "glemak" dunn via Bookmarklet
There's a Windows version as well (which is what I'm using). The UI is a little funkier than I'd like (probably because it's made by Mac people), but I've been trying my hand at writing again and I like laying stories out as blocks/cards first. - brad sucks
ah cool - i'm on a mac so saw the windows version but it wasn't a hot link so maybe their sensing my o/s - seems cool i do lots of writing on 3x5's (pulp kind) & on windows i've been using onenote for awhile and like it but thought this looked more straight forward - mike "glemak" dunn
I've been using this to lay out the 22 pages for my first comic; great for putting down a 1-liner of what should happen in the story on each page, and to begin shifting them around. - Do You KNOW Clarence?
DYKC: Celtx now includes comic writing templates, an integrated index card system, and some basic storyboarding support. Just FYI. - Roger Benningfield
@roger -- I remember hearing about Celtx, I should look into that again. - Do You KNOW Clarence?
@barry -- Let's just say it has to do with aliens, a slacker hero, and the department of motor vehicles. I'm playing it pretty close to the vest, at the moment... - Do You KNOW Clarence?
Interesting. I've got a project where I'm actually really using, you know, actual paper index cards. Method described here: http://is.gd/1cVW . I deliberately chose the old school way, but wonder about digitizing the notecards. Eventually. Will check this app out. - Susan A. Kitchens
“I really do dislike Plurk. I'm starting to wonder if the people touting Plurk's virtues just want to be right about Plurk -- versus seeing the reality of Plurk. Thoughts? Am I wrong? If so, tell me. Still contemplating a ZDNet blog on the topic. ”
The threading is really nice, but for some people the simplicity of twitter is much more appealing. - Rob Diana
Look at what's happening on identi.ca. The race for the most amount of followers. Same difference if you ask me. - Bwana McCall
I haven't found Plurk to be usable. The sideways scrolling, the constant "You have an update!" notifications: it gives me a headache. - Mark Trapp
i tried plurk -- a little too bubblegum for me to be honest. plus the karma points make me feel like i'm in some competition. - Cee Bee
I enjoy the threaded conversations while I'm there. Really really easy to have conversations. It took me a week to get used to the timeline, but when I did, I could see the value. It's a totally different animal from Twitter. (literally) - Bwana McCall
I haven't used Plurk THAT much, but it seems to be carving out its niche as a chatty, lightweight application. There's clearly a group of people who really like it. It won't appeal to everyone, but I think it will find its own audience, probably at the expense of Twitter or FriendFeed. Shrug. If nothing else, it shows that people are interested in conversations, just as they have been for the past 20+ years. I will probably be an occasional user at best, but it probably wasn't designed for me either. - Mark Dykeman
I try not to compare it to Twitter and judge it on its own merits. I just feel overwhelmed having to collapse every single thread just to see if I might be interested in the convo. And having to collapse every thread to see if anyone responded to time. I can't even fathom how a business might use it as some folks have suggested. - Jennifer Leggio
Regarding Jennifer's question, I sincerely believe people who say they like Plurk. Of course there are some who simply must be right as that is true with any situation, but the people I've observed and talked to on Plurk use it for meaningful purposes. You hate it and it seems like you hate to see people like it. :) It's not a black and white type thing though. The term "reality" doesn't have a factual meaning here because liking Plurk is purely opinionated. - Bwana McCall
I disagree that Plurk can be used for business purposes. In my opinion, it's a social, fun tool to be used between friends and family. - Bwana McCall
Regarding following threads, the technique I found to work was selective reading. To "catch up" on Plurk, you will drive yourself nuts if you try to read every thread. What I do is skim the conversations and find the 2 or 3 I'm interested in and I read those. With the new "mute" functionality, I have a rule that if a unwanted conversation shows up 3 or more times when I catch up, I mute the thread. This workflow allows me to catch up on hundreds of updates in minutes. - Bwana McCall
Even with that technique, many don't want to bother with all that. That's perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with disliking it. Plurk can be a huge timesink even with efficient techniques. That was a big reason why I cut back my usage. I would spend hours talking to people. No time for that :) - Bwana McCall
@Bwana "You hate it and it seems like you hate to see people like it." That was an incorrect, unfounded and unnecessary judgment. Just trying to understand it as all. I don't have that much free time to sit around and play with all of these tools so I ask questions to get other people's insights. I expressed an opinion but that does not mean I hate the other people like it. I don't understand why other people like it. Big difference. That comment kind of discredited your whole statement. - Jennifer Leggio
It was a joke Jennifer, hence the smiley. Text sucks for wit. - Bwana McCall
There are lots of things I dislike -- baseball, pork, country music. I may ask questions to better understand the appeal and in doing so I might express my own opinion, but that doesn't mean it bothers me if other people like it. I just may never agree and may always look at them with a raised eyebrow. ;-) - Jennifer Leggio
@Bwana - Yeah, hard to tell if comments with a smiley online are jokes or passive aggression. lol. In that case ignore my statement. But I still dislike Plurk, baseball, pork and country music. ;-) - Jennifer Leggio
Plurk took away the ability to delete an account about 2 weeks ago... I wonder why that is...? I'm guessing Account Retention due to an increased frequency of deletions... sad though that they would prevent you from deleting your account. They don't answer support inquiries either. Fail across the board. - Brandon
I'd like to know how in the world people would use Plurk in their business. A far stretch would be to gather feedback from their products (as businesses do on Twitter, etc). Other than that... I can't see it at all. - Bwana McCall
@Bwana Yeah, I'm trying to figure it out. I've seen a lot of claims made but nothing in action. If I hear of anything concrete I will let you know. - Jennifer Leggio
@Brandon I'm actually interviewing the Plurk folks sometime in the next week so I'll ask them about the account deletion and support. - Jennifer Leggio
Angel - so did I at first. You can change that graphic, but it's not obvious - Bwana McCall
I think the Karma thing bugs me the most. The timeline, is kitschy and I think needlessly complexifies the UI, but ultimately is just a personal preference. I could see businesses using it the same way they use twitter, but with greater potential for starting a dialogue since it is trivial for anyone to track the full conversation. - felix
have a plurk but check it minimally - never really had what i was looking for, but neither did jaiku or pownce - think identi.ca will be the same way - am liking swurl so far though but friendfeed is the real keeper... - mike "glemak" dunn
@Mike Agree. I think that FF has the most sustainability of them all. I wish I could say that about Twitter as I do <3 it... but not looking so good. - Jennifer Leggio
@Jennifer agreed, i ♥ twitter too but things aren't looking that well anymore. FF ftw. - Brandon
@mediaphyter, Plurk is as good as the friends you follow... yet I can't condone one replacing the other. - "Czar" DJ Peterman
Jennifer I can tell you that the people using Plurk are there because we honestly love it. I was on there last night laughing my head off till I was crying at some of the stuff other people were plurking about. It was literally roll in the floor hilarious! I can understand why some people don't like Plurk, but I can also understand EXACTLY why those of us that spend time on Plurk, love it. - Mack Collier
@Mack But the hilarity of the content has nothing to do with the platform, it's the people right? Those people could be anywhere. I have similar experiences with Twitter and FriendFeed and even Pownce before I retired from there. Saying "but it's funny" doesn't defend the platform. It just says you happen to have a good network or find good conversations. That can be done anywhere. - Jennifer Leggio
I'm over at Plurk trying to give it another chance. It's making me feel like I have ADD. Plus there's no way I will remember all of the threads I've posted on. Maybe I need to carry around a Plurk notepad and write them down? :-/ - Jennifer Leggio
Yeah, but people also tout the virtues of MySpace. - Evo Terra via twhirl
Plurk does seem to be a love/hate app - Sarah Perez
Why do people feel that Plurk has to be useful for business? I wasn't into social media at the time but did this type of discussion happen when MySpace came out? Unless you have a band, not too many business uses for that either but it's still very popular. - Vaughn
@Vaughn I don't think anyone's saying it has to be useful for business - but a lot of people are claiming that it is. So I want to understand how (and am currently having that convo with Plurk itself via email). As for MySpace, as much as I've outgrown that myself, a lot of consumer-oriented companies DO still use it for branding and promotion. It's a lot of the B2B companies that it has scared off. - Jennifer Leggio
@Jennifer Leggio That makes sense. Sometimes I feel that Plurk is the square peg and people are trying to force it into the round hole. - Vaughn
Jennifer, stick around a bit longer, it grows on you. But notably: different types of conversation, more informal, less depth. In terms of the layout, I don't like it either, which is why I created Plurkair using the mobile version for the desktop: I prefer Plurk Twitter style, and in that way it's an able player in the space - Duncan Riley
Only mouse-clickers like Plurk. For the keyboard folk, it's like trying to write a 4000 word physics essay with a giant crayon, horrible interface! and Karma? "come back to our service more than Twitter, or we will punish you!". Plurk sucks ass. - Cait
Plurk just blows my mind. I click on something and then it's all ZAZOW and does something crazy I didn't expect. - brad sucks
does the storyline really matter when its hours of Keira on screen. With Attonment, I actually just turned off the audio ;-) - Duncan Riley
It actually makes more sense with the vodka. My theory is that some scamp switched the scripts for the third installments of the Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean, but they got produced, anyway. - Chris Baskind
if you're still able to ask that question, you simply didn't drink enough vodka. do so and pirates 2 & 3, matrix 2 & 3 and a bunch of other films will make sense. some at least... - derlinzer
LOL. I still haven't watched it since buying on DVD last year. Must have a look now :) - mark.kemperman
Really? I usually get email notifications on new friend requests. Never had that happen to me, but I have much lower volume of friend request than you I'm sure. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Leo: Not happening here. Mind you my friend count must be tiny relative to yours, perhaps it is happening to power FF users. - Jon-Paul Bussoli
Not new friend requests - people are getting added to my friends list without notice. I've pared it down to 127 again. Let's see if it goes back up. Weird. - Leo Laporte
I think when you mentioned it on your show over the weekend a lot of us joined. That's when I did and added you as a friend. Although I noticed it not only logs what your friends do, but the friends of your friends. Great site for getting things out there tho. - Raymond C via twhirl
Yes. It happens here, too. I think it's due to the Facebook FriendFeed application. Are you using that? - Robert Scoble
You can change that in the settings, Raymond C, getting updates of friends of friends that is... I turned it off. Too much noise. - rykos
I don't mind it that much.. I am off work for the summer as I drive school bus. It just gives me more to do between martial arts classes. - Raymond C via twhirl
i noticed it too. i've been receiving posts lately from people i haven't subscribed to. the messages weren't shared by friends either. - alanoakes
@scobleizer - yep. I am using the Facebook FF app. So people can use it to put themselves on my Friends list? Or is it a bug? The people who appear are quite random - some of them haven't even configured FF, which makes me think it's a bug. - Leo Laporte
Leo - here is what the FriendFeed FAQ says - "Yes, FriendFeed works with Facebook. You can connect your Facebook account to your FriendFeed account by adding the FriendFeed Facebook application. Your friends will automatically be kept in sync, and you can put your FriendFeed on your profile and in your Facebook mini-feed. The easiest way to connect your FriendFeed and Facebook accounts is to click the Facebook link on your account settings page." - Atul Arora
I've noticed some friend recommendations, where I see notes from people I follow follow. Perhaps thats it (they do say XX is a friend of Leo Laporte" etc - Dom Barnes
@Leo - If its auto adding people to your facebook you might want to send a message to the tech team at FF and let them know, also CC it to Facebook. Sounds like a bug to me. - Raymond C
When I joined up to FF a couple of days ago, you were noted as popular along with a bunch of other people, and I was encouraged to add you (as a friend?). - Bec
@Leo per Scoble that is a feature of the Facebook app. Ultimately I uninstalled it so that I could keep my friends list manageable. - Steve Rubel
Trying to access the settings on Facebook I am getting a page load error that the connection was interrupted! - Joe Dawson
When does social networking apps cross over to being intrusive and counter productive ? What is the tipping point ? Classic e.g above :)- - Peter Dawson
They 'seeded' the service similarly for any new user - smart at "that" phase - Mrinal Desai
Does this mean... we're not really friends? - brad sucks
Leo, our Facebook integration auto-friends as new friends from Facebook join. I am working to make that (a) an option, and (b) add notifications. Sorry for the confusing UI. - Bret Taylor
Ha-glad I used hide to block Pownce feeds yesterday! - Mark Forman
We are all going to see the Hulk at midnight as a company, so we will remove the bad entries by 3 am PST or so. We will disable Pownce in the meantime. - Bret Taylor
I was wondering why in the hell I had 10 pownce things I never posted, and half the people I follow had the same thing :p this explains it all. thanks for the update, I manually deleted the entries either way - BCK
That's not exclusive to Pownce. Apparently my feeds have the same problem (but that's down to my writing)... poop happens as my dad used to say... - Chris Wright via twhirl
Why does no one listen to Egon? Don't cross the streams! It would be bad... - Jim Stanger
Thanks for the note, made me just check *my* shared pownce items ... and delete them. - Mustafa K. Isik
Ok, it is fixed. May still be minor issues throughout the night, so let us know if you see problems. - Bret Taylor
So that's where that junk came from. It showed up in my Twitter, via Twitterfeed (I don't share Pownce here) - Deepak
I like all the openness in the development of FF! - Winston Teo
Leah Culver posted about this right after it happened. At least they communicate - Charlie Anzman
