So many of us who are testing the waters of Plurk were greeted by an interesting Plurk page today featuring our friends from the A-Team.

The site was down for over 30 minutes and just recently came back up. Unfortunately Plurk’s blog gives us no insight as to what the downtime was about. Are there new features? Improved features? What did this downtime provide us?

Perhaps the most interesting thing was the lack of outcry on Twitter regarding the downtime. Following recent downtimes on Twitter, Plurk users would fill their timelines with gripes about Twitter outages and the incompetence of the service. In this instance I saw maybe two comments on Twitter about the outage. Aside from that the Twitter timeline was business as usual.

Clearly users have not built up a reliance on Plurk the way they have with Twitter. I think it goes to show that Plurk still hasn’t reached the point of being a big information source like Twitter. Users aren’t looking to Plurk for the latest in industry news and information like they have with Twitter.

I still believe that Plurk has a lot of potential, but the buzz surrounding today’s outage, or lack thereof, seems to show that most people haven’t climbed aboard the Plurk bandwagon just yet.

My mother-in-law recently became Craigslist obsessed. She has always been a sucker for a bargain or getting something for nothing, so naturally Craigslist makes tons of bargains and free goods available at the click of a mouse. During one of her browsing sessions she stumbled across one of the funniest ads I have ever seen. Since the ad has already been taken down I will share the whole thing here on my blog. Needless to say the items went quick, and a lot of it I’m sure had to do with the ad copy.

FREE! $10 Bill (We’ll throw in a couch and chair too!)

Date: 2008-05-29, 3:31PM

That’s right, we’re giving away a free $10 bill! Too good to be true? Not at all! This is a real, non-counterfeit bill, made in here in the USA and usable all over the world! (*but only where US currency is accepted).

How can you get this free $10 bill you ask? I’ll tell you. This $10 bill has two good friends named Couch and Chair, and they must all go to a good home together. If you can come and take Couch and Chair home with you, then $10 bill would love to join. Sorry, the $10 bill cannot be taken to a new home without BOTH of its friends because it would be lonely.

**For those who haven’t caught on, we’ll pay you $10 to take our couch and chair…**

What would you do with these new great things? Here are some suggestions for Couch and Chair: sit on them, lay on them, spoon with a friend on them, watch tv on them, take a nap on them, read on them. Really, your options are endless.

But what about $10 bill? You could buy two gallons of gas and a slurpee, a ten dollar gift card at your favorite store, ten items at a dollar store, a burrito with guacamole and chips and drink at Chipotle, two lunches at McDonalds, etc. Or, you could just go for a free walk in the park with $10 bill tucked safely in your pocket.

Below are pictures of all three items for your viewing pleasure. The couch and chair are tan leather. The $10 bill is greenish and made with whatever materials bills are made of. Though they don’t show in the picture, the couch has a hole on the seat cushion part where it meets the back that we covered with blankets or pillows and no one ever knew. The chair may have a rip or two as well. Other than that, they’re in decent shape and perfect for those in a new home or apartment, college students, rec rooms, or people who like $10 bills. Please understand their condition before you come. If you don’t want a couch with any rips, this just isn’t the deal for you, but we wish you the best in your search! But really, any rips are easily coverable. Or you could just put the $10 towards a slipcover.

If you’ve read through everything and think your home would be the perfect place for these items, there’s one last thing to know. You’ll have to come pick these up yourself. We’ve fit the Couch and Chair together in a minivan with the back and middle seats removed, but they wouldn’t fit into anything smaller. They aren’t very heavy and are easily lifted by two people. We can help you carry it to your car, but can’t do it for you while you just carry the $10 bill.

This is probably some of the most inventive and amusing ad copy I have read in a while. And it just goes to show that with the right marketing technique you can sell just about anything; even a ten dollar bill and some torn furniture.

If you’re like me then you probably jumped on the Plurk bandwagon last week and have spent countless hours wasting the day away in hopes that it will eventually provide you with the same kind of gratification that Twitter gives me when searching for industry news and updates. Sadly the Plurk universe has failed to deliver that same gratification I have come to love with Twitter. Though there are still those few updates here and there that hold some industry relevance; I find that the majority of the information on Plurk is made up of random musings and life updates.

Following some office politics that damn near shutdown much of our Twitter and Plurk use last week, a number of my colleagues and I discussed the differences between the two services and the potential that Plurk holds over Twitter if it takes off for SEO/SEM’s new and old.

Perhaps the most intriguing argument I heard, in favor of Plurk, came from Kristina Sanchez. She had mentioned how many of the updates on Plurk quickly turn into something that simulates a group IM or chat room. She brought up how this would provide a great opportunity for SEO/SEM’s to communicate as a group and share ideas. People from all walks of life, backgrounds, and industries can easily chime in on the topic at hand, and respond to something on your timeline even if the update or subject matter did not originally involve them.

This concept really got me thinking. Imagine if some of the key players in SEO/SEM were as active on Plurk as they are on Twitter. That would open an incredible opportunity for those in the SEO/SEM industry to interact and bounce ideas off of one another. SEO/SEM’s could easily interact and comment on each other’s posts in an environment that often feels like a chat room. And because Plurk groups responses with the original plurk people can follow the updates with ease. Often on Twitter you will see an update and a handful of responses from people, but you don’t always get the whole conversation and a lot of time the update is overlooked completely.

As of right now I still see Twitter has done a great job at providing people with a means of finding out what is going on with the industry and those involved. But Plurk opens the door for a whole world of opportunity. A way for the industry to openly and easily communicate what is going on in the industry and the chance to bounce ideas off one another or ask questions in a real time environment. Twitter provides an opportunity for similar interaction, but not in a community format like Plurk. I still feel Plurk is a huge time waster with a poor UI, but there is clearly a great opportunity that if taken advantage of, could make a huge difference in the SEO/SEM industry.