Matt’s Journal

Twitter Plays It Tough

Posted by Matt under Social Media, Tech

Having just signed up at Plurk and getting into the swing of things, I can safely say that I will not be needing my Twitter account anymore. Conversation flows much easier on Plurk and most of the friends I had on Twitter are already present on it’s rival service.

This morning I tried to delete my account, Twitter did want any of it. I was presented with the following message:

I understand that they are having problems but disabling the ability to delete accounts? That’s not cricket. I have spoken to a few people who have tried to do the same but have had the same notice appear, are Twitter really that desperate to hold onto users?

Plurk: The New Twitter?

Posted by Matt under Angry, Social Media, Tech

Yesterday I was viewing my Twitter feed and catching up on any Tweets I had missed when I came across a few people mentioning a new service named Plurk. Thinking it was another social media aggregator, I scrolled on to read the rest of my feeds.

But then my curiosity got the better of me. Clicking into the search bar at the top of my browser, thinking that I was about to discover and online version of the board game “Kerplunk”, I typed in the name and swiftly hit enter.

Firstly Plurk’s meta-description of their site is as follows:

Plurk is a social journal that let’s you publish, share your thoughts, emo-ness, “!%#%”#” and loves. What is up, my friend? See what other people are doing …

OK, so it’s a social platform that can take the piss out of itself, I like that. Looking at the front page, it sells itself as a very similar service to Twitter, one that boasts a few extra features and a much nicer user interface. It also has a logo which is a Headless Dog…..The screenshot below demonstrates the layout:

Having befriended a few friends from Twitter on Plurk, I set to work trying out the service. First impressions are that the timeline is a very good idea, it shows you who posted and when and allows you to be able to reply to their message with a click to open a dropdown reply form (shown again below):

Word on the internet is that Plurk don’t want user’s developing third party applications for this service, although I have seen no official word on this. Twitter’s real plus is that it allows you to post and receive via SMS, browser, addon or client. So far only Gtalk is supported by Plurk.

There is however a clever sidebar addition for Firefox which utilises the mobile version of the site. You can download this addon by clicking here.

Have I sold Plurk and you think you want to try it? Sign up via this link and you will automatically be added to my friends list.

Twitter: Mountains and Molehills

Posted by Matt under General, Social Media, Spendage

I have been reading Techcrunch and various Web2.0 blogs recently bemoaning the fact that Twitter has been down so much since it’s popularity sky-rocketed. You have Michael Arrington single-handedly charting their ups and downs, telling us how Twitter can change their ways to maximise their cluster computing from Amazon.

The problem is that people are building this service up on a pedestal, making its very existence essential for them to live their lives.

I happen to have Twitter, Gmail, MSN, Yahoo and my blog as other communication mediums. When certain services are down (there have been times I am unable to connect to Gtalk and I bet they have better server management than Twitter), I have just switched to another service.

I’m stuck for things to do this Sunday afternoon and have been bombarded on Twitter and Google Reader with anti-Twitter propaganda and wanted to sound off.

Just for the record, Friendfeed is a useless service and I have no idea why people are singing its praises so much.

How To Run A Social Media Site

Posted by Matt under Social Media

Everybody remembers the last time they experienced some truly awesome customer service, whether it be in your local supermarket, dining in a restaurant or when a popular website rolls out one of your suggestions.

The latter is what Mixx did.

Mixx has a fantastic reputation for delivering on user requests as I have posted before but let me show you how a request I put to the Mixx team was rolled out in a matter of days.

The Story (sit down children).

I had requested that Mixx place a “Google” category in the Tech section of their website (as shown below) via Twitter. I didn’t receive a response right away but assumed it would be added to the list of site improvements.

Fast forward four days and I receive a Twitter message notification in my email telling me a Google category has been added.

I log in and low and behold, the section is there in all it’s glory!

It really shows that when users come up with a good idea, the Mixx team will do whatever it takes to get the feature implemented. With all the problems at Digg, I really can’t see people putting up with inadequacy there for too long before they end up coming to the “Red Side” where there is a proper community.

You can view the new category here.