Jim Carlson dot Net

Somewhere in 2008, I along with a handful of friends joined Plurk. Essentially, Plurk is very similar to Twitter in that each message or link, can be up to 140 text characters in length.

What set Plurk apart was threaded conversations. If I Plurked, your response would be added below my Plurk, and a conversation thread would be born. This made keeping track of what was going on very easy — no hashtags, no @ replies, etc. If a conversation bores you, you can ‘mute’ it and stop receiving updates.

To incentivise people to use Plurk, an added feature (or pain) was added: Karma. The more you used the platform, the more Karma points you earned — which opened up icons and other functionality. The issue I had with Karma is if you lived ‘offline’ for a bit, you’d lose functionality — which seemed like punishment.

I, like many of my peers, eventually spent more time on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I let my Plurk account become inactive. Despite Plurk’s better technology (in my opinion), Twitter simply had more of my friends, more information, better business practicality and more community support (external apps). Think Beta vs VHS.

So why am I even writing about Plurk? Yesterday I received a Plurk invite on my Facebook wall. One of my friends Tweeted about it. There seems to be some resurgence going on here. I logged in today. Guess what? Many of my friends are still active. Silently, Plurk lives on. It was nice to see that this platform, and my friends (many who I do not have contact with on other social networks) are sill Plurking away.

The cool thing about Plurk is that it is not mainstream. My coworkers aren’t on Plurk (yet). Plurkers are social, but not in the business of using Plurk as a broadcast platform. There is less spam and more conversation. I hope that the recent buzz around Plurk brings attention to the platform, but I’m also hoping that the platform doesn’t lose its cool vibe.

I really don’t have the time to maintain ‘yet another social media platform’, don’t care about Karma, but I’m going to check in more often. If you are a Plurker, friend me up at: plurk.com/jimcarlson

Do you Plurk? Did you Plurk? What are your thoughts?

Reference: Plurk Wiki

Editors Note: You can view the complete series of Facebook articles on this site by viewing the Facebook Category.

As many of you are aware, Facebook recently allowed profile users to create custom URL’s. Instead of a series of numbers, a profile URL is as simple as www.facebook.com/jimcarlson.

Unfortunately, Facebook Pages needed 1,000 fans to qualify for a custom URL, which left a lot of smaller businesses, bands and organizations in the dark.

But there is good news, according to information posted on the Facebook Help Pages, all Pages with at least 100 fans will be eligible for custom URL’s on Sunday, June 28, 2009.

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Facebook Band Pages, Musicians and Social Media Networks and Surviving a Recession as a Musician.

The original Facebook Pages (for bands, businesses and non-profits) had completely different functionality and visual layout from the personal profile pages.

The layout differences were startling. While personal profiles were dynamic (with status updates, friend feeds, applications), the Pages had a boxy, almost web 1.0 layout. There was no interaction on the pages, they served as a glorified Facebook ‘business card’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Updated Facebook Band and Business Pages, Musicians and Social Media Networks and Surviving a Recession as a Musician.

In my last post on Musicians and Social Media Networks, I discussed the basics of social media networks that help musicians communicate and promote their music. I have a MySpace band page, and as I discussed in the post mentioned above, managing social media networks can be a challenge, but may be worth the effort.

Needless to say, when Facebook announced Band Pages, I wasn’t the first to jump on bandwagon. However, after reading an article on New Muisc Strategies: What websites should I be on? (part 3), I took another look.

To set up a Facebook Band Page, you must already have (or create) a Facebook account. Once you are in your account, you can create ‘pages’ using the Page Manager application link in the left hand navigation. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Facebook Band Pages, Updated Facebook Band and Business Pages, and Surviving a Recession as a Musician.

As a musician who has leveraged social media for several years, I use social media networks and tools every day to communicate with others and promote my music. The majority of these services are free, the only expense is your time.

Social media sites allow you to promote your music, videos, photos and gig schedules with your fans in an environment where they can interact with your music and share it with others in their network.

This article will look at two categories of social media:1) all-in-one social media networks and 2) stand alone networks which include specialty media and communication services.

Read the rest of this entry »