In what has recently seemed like a decrease in user activity it appears that Plurk is trying to change its image a little.  When I head over to the social site this morning to login I was greeted with this new home page layout.

But is it enough, and did they really come up with a new design that is really going to attract new users?  It’s always been my opinion that the one thing Plurk fails to do is make itself stand out amongst other social networking and microblogging sites on the net.

Plurk is unique in the fact that it is built around a physical timeline and makes it easier for friends and fans to interact freely in the plurk timeline .  Unlike Twitter you are able to see everybody’s response to a person’s Plurk regardless of whether or not you are following the person.  The opens up the conversation significantly and can also open you up to meeting other interesting Plurk users.

Sadly Plurk has never done a very good job at selling these points to users on their site and has never had a very appealing home page.  The new design is even less appealing with a boring white background and the usual lack of anything of real interest on the home page.  At this rate it makes me wonder how much longer Plurk will stay afloat.  Most of my social media and SEO guru friends left Plurk ages ago and I only check it a couple of times a day.

What do you think of the new Plurk home page?  Do you think its an improvement or has Plurk fallen back into the days of early 2.0 sites? Are you a Plurk user?  Have you seen a decrease in user activity as well?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Ever since it blew up on Twitter back in June of this year I have been an avid user of the microblogging site Plurk.  At the beginning I had my qualms with Plurk, but in the end I wound up using Plurk probably just as much, if not more than Twitter.

Following the first month of using the service I did a post about Plurk’s karma rewards and how I felt that many of their perks were useless.  One in particular was the ability to change your display name once you reach 40 karma points.  At that time I mentioned how absurd it would be to establish yourself with a specific name just to turn around and become someone else.   I mentioned at the time how much doing something like that could hurt you. More specifically I said,

“…anyone who friends you after you’ve changed your display name probably only knows you by that name. Because of this they are probably unaware that you were once JoePlurk, since your current display name is MightyJoePlurk. In turn they may use @MightyJoePlurk when they reference you, which sadly does not link back to your profile. Which brings us to another problem. Let’s say that someone wants to visit your profile, and they only remember you by the name MightyJoePlurk. If they use that in the profile URL they will be sent to a friendly screen featuring our friends in the A-Team.  Sure it’s amusing, but not when you are trying to find someone.”

For those of you new to Plurk or who did not use Plurk in the beginning; the A-Team reference was in regards to an error page you were directed to when a profile didn’t exist or the site was experiencing difficulties.

Plurk partially fixed this problem after the fact by making it so that if you did use @newdisplayname it would redirect to the proper profile.  The catch?  It only works if the person has already commented on the Plurk you are referring to them in.  If you start out a new plurk to someone using @newdisplayname it will either take you to a page telling you the user can’t be found, or worse yet, someone else’s profile who used your alternative display name as their primary display name.

Let me clarify in case you just missed that.  Plurk allows new users to use other users alternate display names as their primary display name.  I’ll give you a personal example of this.  My friend Audrey signed up with the display name ShirleyTipsy.  When she reached 40 karma points she changed her display name to PrettyInInk.  Then in November a new user signed up with the primary display name prettyinink.  Now if I or any of Audrey’s friends type @PrettyInInk in a plurk that she hasn’t commented in or started it links to 15 year old Chelsea Gogola instead.

The biggest problem I see with this is that if you didn’t sign up with your brand name or known username and switched to the proper name later, your competition could easily sign up using the correct brand or username as their primary display name in hopes of capturing plurk traffic and users that you might be targeting.  While I understand Plurk hasn’t been doing a whole lot for business conversions it is still a social site that could potentially pull in clients and new site visitors.

My advice to Plurk is to do away with this system for good and simply stick everyone with their original display names.  Some people may get upset, but if you explain to them how flawed the system was to begin with I’m sure they’ll understand.

Those of you who follow me on Plurk or Twitter probably saw my rants recently about the corporate decision to block Plurk.com on our network at the office.  While nothing was officially passed down, I am sure they felt it would help those of us who use it be “more productive” with our day.  The irony of this change is that the decision to block Plurk came shortly after the return of (The Gypsy) David Harry’s SEO Plurkshop; a clique which I frequently reference and pass on links from at the office.  I can understand blocking social sites like Plurk from departments that don’t NEED social media, but does it make sense to block something like Plurk from website marketers?

I get that social media isn’t always a business venture, and I know that those of us in the office that were using Plurk were not doing so on a strictly business basis.  I’ll be the first to admit that my use of Plurk was not always for the harvesting SEO information and news.  However, the time spent on Plurk outside of those tasks was used to develop relationships with others in the industry.  Relationships that have often provided me with useful and relevant information related to my work here in the office.

I think the problem is that most people still don’t understand social media and the value in it.  Sure there is A LOT of random banter and back and forth on social networks, but those interactions are what build relationships.  And out of those relationships you build a network of people who share their knowledge, their information, and their thoughts on subjects that in many cases may inspire your work or even give you a new idea or concept you might have never considered.

When the threat of a plurkless office was brought up a few months back I quickly tried to show the value in social media by openly passing on links and information from social sites that I felt would benefit my colleagues and our clients that I found on sites like Plurk and Twitter.  I would share links 2, 3, sometimes even 4 times a day with information that was relevant to the work we do.  These articles and ideas all came from social media and I would not have been aware of them had it not been for these sites.  There is always someone else out there who follows different people, reads different blogs, or has their own SEO experiences to share, many of which will never show up in your reader or during your personal research.

I feel that social media and website marketing go hand in hand.  I am a strong believer that social media can change the way businesses interact with the general public and other businesses in ways never imagined.  I also believe that the diversity of ideas, points of view, and information provided on social networks is a great way to help businesses and marketers alike stay on top of their industry and build a network of resources often lost in the sea of information on the internet.  Sure, social media might take a few minutes away from client work off and on throughout the day, but I think that the overall rewards outweigh those few minutes of “productivity” that are lost.  By blocking sites like Plurk in a marketing environment you are separating yourself from another avenue of valuable information that might not only benefit your employees, but often your clients.