Plurk, Twitter, Facebook: Get Ping.fm to Rule Them All
I got to use Plurk, Twitter and Facebook at the same time for a number of days. Since I got a lot of social networks in my list, I thought I could synchronize updates using only one tool – ping.fm is a good thing to keep these three updated. At first I thought that ping.fm would solve my woes of reducing a bit of work in maintaining social sites.
I was wrong.
I realized that Plurk, Twitter and Facebook are three different social sites with different sets of people. I have Twitter friends, I have Plurk friends and I have Facebook friends too. I had to maintain good relationship with those friends whom I connect with each of those three social networks, not only just posting out links of my own stuff.
As a Plurk friend had said, there can be too much social noise. I defended that too much social noise is a lot better then having no one to talk with – at least online.
Twitter:a big mixed group
I joined Twitter first, and right now I’m proud to have over a hundred Twitter followers. The Twitter group that I got are from different countries like the US, Canada, India and of course, the Philippines.
What I like best about Twitter is that this network is far well developed. There are a lot of software that is written for it, like TwitBin, TweetDeck, Twhirl (what I use) and can easily be integrated in a lot of social sites like Facebook. Also, Twitter remains to be the main choice of A-list bloggers so I get to follow their updates regularly.
Plurk: down to earth and casual
I have a different set of friends in Plurk, and since I am a newcomer, I had only 18 friends and 10 fans on my account. Perhaps if I placed my widget on one or more of my blogs then I must have grown a bigger friend and fan base. I find Plurk a much more interactive site than Twitter. If not for those A-list bloggers who use Twitter more than Plurk, then Plurk should have been a better medium than Twitter – it has more features than what I can write on this post.
I find Plurk users a lot more interactive than my Twitter friends. As soon as I had plurked out something, I often get replies in less than a minute – even from interested strangers who wants to connect with me.
Facebook: a better Friendster
Friendster remains to be the social network of choice in Asia. But to me, Facebook is a lot better. It can put links automatically from those Twitter. It can also post out links from delicious, Stumbleupon, Digg automatically. Well, a great medium to promote, IF only I have a lot of friends. I only got 18 of them in my account.
But most of my Friendster friends find it too overwhelming to maintain a lot of social networks. They are still sticking out to Friendster and I don’t think those Friendster users would like to switch or add Facebook.
Ping.fm: synchronize the social networks at once
I use ping.fm on times when I had to promote my own blog posts or share a link to all the three networks at one. I just wish that ping.fm will be able to show a Youtube and picture snapshot on Plurk and Facebook networks, than just showing a shortened link going to it.
chubskulit
November 18th, 2008 at 9:31 am #
I only knew twitter but am not really active with it.. I agree with you on the “too much noise”.. yeah its better than be alone, kakabored and kalokah to death… I might check those other social networks you’ve mentioned.. Thanks for sharing Gem.. Ingat kayo lagi!
Gem
November 18th, 2008 at 9:58 pm #
@chubskulit
Thanks! Yeah. I was suffering loneliness but having some friends online surely help keep me in touch, especially now that most of friends don’t live in the city or are busy with their own lives.
blanne
November 18th, 2008 at 11:54 pm #
i have to agree with you when you said that plurk is waaay better than twitter. in fact, the only reason i stopped plurking was that i couldn’t follow other bloggers’ activities, most especially the pro ones.
and unfortunately, plurk lacks the tools that would have been helpful for us bloggers.. tsk. so i guess there’s no stopping in using twitter now..
Windmill
November 20th, 2008 at 11:05 am #
Gem,
Till this very day, I cannot get a hang on ANY of the popular websites. I am far from being “anti-social” but these Social Network sites are a load of rubbish to me really.
On three occasions, a blogger-friend submitted my article at StumbleUpon. The next thing I noticed within 5 minutes of that submission, the StumbleUpon-ers came in wave after wave. I counted the number of StumbleUpon visitors and they were in excess of 180 in under 2 hours.
Then guess what? NOT A SINGLE STUMBLEUPON-ER MADE A COMMENT ON ALL THREE SEPARATE ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS.
They like others appear to be an elite lot of BLog Inspectors. Absolutely defies what social networking really defines. The bottom line is that if that is what Social Network is, there isn’t a need for such centers.
The same may be said about Facebook and Twitter and a host of others. I’ve signed up with several SN’s and I find them not user-friendly.
My sister in Singapore joined the trend (after it was promoted heavily by a CN-Asia televised documentary) and started her account with Facebook. She sent me an email invite to her Facebook. I went in circles trying to get myself accepted at her Facebook account to no avail. I gave up!
Ironically, StumbleUpon defines exactly that – just stumbling aimlessly. Facebook is more like a faceoff, Twitter is such a twit to use and DIGG just keeps on digging to no end.
oh, and may I add that the 3 articles that were submitted at StumbleUpon were pretty heavy stuff. One that would generate discussion.
jessie
November 21st, 2008 at 10:47 pm #
Gem,
Just dropping by from Ivy’ site. You see like you I also use the 3 social networks. It’s really difficult to update them all at once. While the traffic from the 3 social networks are relatively low, I think the exposure and backlinks from them are good links to increase our chances of getting higher PR’s in the next update. yup, we get some backlinks promoting our sites to those networks.
Gem
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm #
@blanne
Thanks. Lots of software are made for Twitter, agree with you.
@Windmill
Interesting discussion. Different social networks respond differently. Entrecard is one big social network in itself and I figured out that most of them simply take a look at the very first entry of a blog – to see if it is interesting or not. But when I do stumbles, I prefer those that are visually stimulating than the ones that entertain interesting discussion. I get good Twitter traffic though.
@Jessie
Indeed, these are difficult to update all at once. But I had to agree with those submissions, Digg gets my content indexed with Google within 24 hours.
betchai
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 am #
Hi Gem, I just signed up on Facebook yesterday, I thought about you but when I used your email somehow it did not give me your profile, so I was not able to add you. You can use the email I give here to find me there.