What is Plurk?

I'd never heard of Plurk until a few days ago. I saw it mentioned on the Etsy forums and thought I'd check out, because come on, you can never be on too many social networking sites (insert eye roll eye). ;) What is Plurk? According to the Plurk website, it's a noun and a verb.

Noun. plurk (plüer-kh) - A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life in deliciously digestible chunks. Low in fat, 5 calories per serving, yet chock full of goodness

Verb. plurk (plüer-kh) - To chronicle the events of your always on, action-packed, storybook, semi-charmed kinda life.

Plurk is an easy way to chronicle and share the things you do, the way you feel, and all the other things in between that make up your life, with the people close to you.

The social networking site that I can best compare it to is Twitter. Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens—from breaking world news to updates from friends.

After having been on both Twitter and Plurk, I have to say Plurk is much more enjoyable. Twitter seems to be filled with a lot of 'hey look at my shop' and a multitude of other ads; there seems to be more "Me! Me! Me!" on it. Plurk, on the other hand, is much easier to follow, and has a much more personal feel to it. You can keep track of conversations between users, and can find people who have similar intrests to yours. I don't feel like I'm being constantly bombarded with ads like I do when I'm on Twitter.

Here's the top half of what your Plurk page will look like; well mine has a different background that I added, but this is what the timeline looks like where conversations show up. You can click on it to make it larger.
You are notified when people post new conversations or reply to existing ones, and the conversations expand when you click on them. You also receive alerts when someone wants to be your friend or has approved your friendship request.
If you've been a Twitter user for a while like I am, it doesn't take very long to get used to the format. Here's the bottom half of your page which shows your friends, fans, bio, photo, and other information. When you put URLs in your bio they automatically become clickable. I have my Etsy shop, my main site, and my blog linked there.
For those of you interested in the marketing aspect of it, I have had traffic to my Etsy shop as a result of using Plurk. I very rarely post a link to my shop and I have a significantly lower number of friends/followers at this point than I do on Twitter, yet I still get a good amount of traffic to my shop. As I continue to add friends and "talk" with them, the traffic is sure to increase, however, getting traffic to my shop is not my main purpose in being on Plurk. It's fun, so check it out! I just joined two days ago and I'm hooked. I'm sure it won't disappoint. Have a wonderful day and happy Plurking!