Should The Lindens Buy Plurk?

That's the question posed recently by ArminasX Saiman, though he phrases it in a way that suggests partly wishful thinking.  A professional content developer, Saiman lays out his case for the Lindens acquiring the microblogging/social network start-up, which he's been using for several months with other top Residents.  (See image at left.) It's easy to use, for one thing, it allows for asynchronous communication, and it stores conversations across a timeline-- all necesseties for Second Life's growth.  It's far better for real world-to-SL interactions, too, according to Saiman:  "Imagine how easy it is to start a party: SPLURK it, and people appear!"  Maybe so, but what would be the disadvantages of such a purchase?

Comments

[Jane2]

What is a "top resident"? I suspect many Plurk users are also using every other social networking tool out there to communicate with the same people they talk to on Twitter etc.

And maybe LL should invest in a stable grid rather than some tool for the cool social networkers to use.

[Pavig Lok]

The only reason plurk is handy for second lifers as they're still balkanized in the plurksphere - early adopters of a social platform talking about their other early adopter social platform. As such they're yet to be surrounded by the kind of noise that all these platforms fall into once they get widespread adoption.

Plurks enhancements over twitter were a response to people using twitter style platforms as if they were im clients. When they get noisy enough they become poor IM clients and lose the focus they originally had in the short and sweet stakes.

I don't think microblogging such as tumblr, twitter and plurk are quite the universal communications platforms that folk believe they are. All platforms are exciting and seem great tho when it's just you and a hundred of your closest friends using them. :P

So... for LL - plurk isn't a good fit... for use within SL for small communities plurk is ideal. But then so is twitter and a bunch of others i've tinkered with.

If you doubt my arguments here, take another look at the screen grab above - arguably the noise to signal ratio in that is very high, and would be better served by im than an archival web medium. Your lols of today aren't funny tomorrow, and within minutes the original post containing the actual information of interest to anyone who might wish to look back at what's happened will be lost in other babble.

Plurkers would argue that their platform allows them to deal well with this level of noise... but does it scale?

And as for LL - i think the domain is wrong.

[ArminasX]

I have to say that yes, the suggestion of buying Plurk was firmly tongue-in-cheek. My point was that Linden Lab really has to do something about the lousy communication facilities.

We really have poor communication facilities, beyond the "normal" 3D proximity environment. We can fly or even teleport, but can't send an IM without successfully navigating through a series of steps.

As for Plurk, yes, there is tons of noise. Just like any other environment. Go to any club/party/gathering in SL and you will be besieged with "Woot!" "Yaaaay!" or "I Lurve That Songgg!" The trick to Plurk and any other social environment is to be able to tune out the noise so that you can rapidly find the good stuff. Once you do that, you will find that Plurk is a very useful tool.

Nevertheless, it may not be the perfect tool, or you may prefer another one, but my point stands. People use alternative services because the SL communication services are not sufficient.

[vint falken]

Pavig, you're right about the noise, but for now, that 'mute' button on a certain plurk and it's responses is the most handy button evvah! ;)

[Eric Rice/Spin Martin]

As hilarious as this would be (and my own desires to see EA buy Linden Lab (that's a WHOLE 'NOTHER POST), I could see it as a good thing.

Here's why:

Remove as much functionality from IN world that doesn't have to do with 3D/rendering, etc, OUT of world. I love There.com and Kaneva having so much manageable from outside the world (Kaneva esp, imagine uploading textures and YouTube links without having to go in world... workflow).

It's amazing to me that groups and IM and such are a problem in the day and age where um, well, has anyone USED facebook or other socnets? Groups, IMs, and fundamental basic utilities are figured out, done, workable, and have uptime.

Walking across a sim border is an issue. Get rid of the extraneous crap from IN world to focus on the heavy stuff, and let the Plurks, Facebook/mySpace functionality exist OUT of world.

[Dirk Talamasca]

PLURK is exceedingly lame. It is to me like using the early chat pages on the web where you have to refresh the page every so often to follow the conversation. Perhaps those that like PLURK didn't experience that nonsense so don't realize how antiquated it really is.

I absolutely agree with Eric that many functions in SL could and should be carried out without having to involve firing up the client.

Other than circumventing firewall issues and providing better interaction with mobile devices I have no problem at all firing up a client to venture in world. I prefer doing that to accessing the app via a web browser.

But for certain things, such as Instant messaging, sending Linden Dollars between residents, uploading, naming and setting permissions on textures, managing ban lists on parcels or regions, managing your groups, editing your profile, classifieds, sending notices etc.. All of that should be manageable from a profile page much like Facebook and it should be run by Linden Lab, not any of these cheesy start ups out there that are seeking to get us all to join up and post our photos and claim our identity. They are poorly done and inconsistent with the look and feel of LL's layout. To be honest, the only reason I even sign up at any of those sites is to protect my identity from being hijacked. I never use any of the services they offer afterward because they are clunky, irrelevant and inadequate.

A resident profile page run by LL would only be accessible in stages. If you are not an SL resident, you may see a very limited display of the residents web profile, if you are a resident, you see a bit more, and much as you can exchange mod rights, you could grant another resident the ability to alter certain portions of your profile if you are ill or away for an extended period of time to direct your customers or friends toward the proper route for resolution. These rights would be very limited though, never allowing exchange of monies or viewing of account information.

Why can't I work in Photoshop and still receive messages from a customer who may have had an issue with a product? Why can't I refund them on the spot via the web or IM if I have determined there was truly an error? I should be able to do that without going in world. It is quick and easy, the customer has been served and I can get back to work immediately.

I can foresee a link to the resident's web page as a means to sign up for a mailing list to keep up with new releases or events, thus eliminating the need for us to join so many groups unless they are specifically required to manage land or objects. I know we'd all be a lot happier with that.