I bet that Plurk ends up with more users than FriendFeed and Twitter. It's just has this goofiness and gaminess that the mass market will find appealing, even if the snobby A-list tech bloggers ignore it. I'm not on MySpace, either, very often, but it's done just fine without me. Congrats! - Robert Scoble

Agree Plurk could end up with more users than both twitter and FriendFeed. Twitter because of uptime and FriendFeed is too complex/powerful for mass adoption in its current UX. - Christian Anderson

Do you guys think that Plurk's Karma system will start being emulated in other sites looking for mass appeal? The whole concept rubs me the wrong way. - Frankie Warren

Personally I hate the Karma system, but I don't think the whole thing is targeted at me either. It's viral, encourages participation, and seems to be working. - Duncan Riley

I can't bring myself to create a Plurk account, but I think it'll appeal to the MySpace crowd... once it breaks out of the early adopter trenches, I could see it doing well. See you there when they cross the 5 million user mark.. at that point I don't think I could keep ignoring it. ;) - Eric Hamilton

@Frankie: the karma system has its benefits and its disadvantages. Sure when you are on like you normally are its fine, but if you go on vacation sans internet say goodbye to karma. And as far as users I've become active over on plurk along with several others but many signed up did a few posts and quit, so its a little bit of both, people who are sticking with it, and dead profiles - BCK

i've whined about the karma system and think the tech early-adopters will all hate it, but Plurk was designed with teenaged girls as a key target and it seems to be doing well attracting more of a diverse, mass (albeit still small, but growing) audience, versus the ubergeeks on friendfeed. Karma will only get aped if Plurk becomes a certified hit and Plurk is not in danger of that just yet. - Christian Anderson

even if teen girls were the main target, it does stuff right conversions are easy to follow, sharing is much better than twitter... - BCK via twhirl

Right right. But do you think the karma system is being recognized as something that is driving usage of the site and will therefore be increasingly used by start ups trying to break into the mainstream? - Frankie Warren

And this is after dozens of people said "fail" when they first heard about it and they had downtime issues. Just goes to show what persistence is worth in the face of critics. I still haven't found a liking for it myself, but I respect their efforts. - Ray Grieselhuber

I have an account, but... I just don't know if it's really worth it yet? - l0ckergn0me

the only real interactions i've had there were with Duncan. Mainly because we happened to both be trying to figure it out at the same time. Plurk is a bit myspacey for me. I think it has real potential, but its not there yet. - Christian Anderson

the one thing I'll add (and I dont think it was in the post) is that it's my non-techy friends that have taken to Plurk the most. I'm seriously thinking consumer play in the Mahalo space. Still, it's not too bad, at least its up more than twitter :-) - Duncan Riley

plurk last a week with me, thread conversation good. Not always conversing with your friends in bad. Gone back to Twiiter and using FF more - Nick Cowie via twhirl

I was on it for about the same time frame Nick, it just didn't seem engaging to me! - Joe Dawson

Plurk is only as 'myspacey' as your friends are 'myspacey' - there are plenty of grown-ups on Plurk having great threaded conversations all day long. Sure, the initial sign-up page and the public timeline appear a bit teeny, but then I thought for a long time that twitter looked dumb because of its home page and public timeline before I fully engaged with it too. To each their own, but I think Plurk's uptime (yes, with a far smaller user base currently than Twitter) & threaded conversations are major pluses - Matt Hooper

I changed my twitter avatar to the Fail Whale. Plurk FTW! - The Dude Dean