Some thoughts on my days in the Plurk-o-verse

Weren’t we just talking about trademarks, standards and linkbait? …. Naaww.… this week there's a new buzz -

The latest kid in the corral –Plurk. As one person alluded to, half jokingly, its twitter on meth essentially. Granted many new services that come out experience some initial geek surge, but even this Gypsy was on about FriendFeed (and it’s Rooms) recently – this one is different.

 For starters it has a strange snow ball effect going on as you seem to spiral out of control. It is like having an interactive, multimedia enabled forum that Plurked and instant messenger client. You’ll be lucky to not be talking in the third person in no time.

Beyond that I met some folks that gave help and others that made tools for the community to benefit from. Once rolling it is interesting to not only interact but add flavour with images and graphics… You can also start private groups called *cliques* that help one segment their messages once your friend lists get longer.

Some Goodies

Ok, you can get round one of the community – How to post
You can also get the FireFox extension
Or get hooked up to the Desktop client

Import Twitter friends to Plurk with this tool
and there is even a Plurk Bookmarlet
Also you can find Plurkers from around the world

Video - I use my Multimedia tab in the Ol iGoogle Homepage; and post the URL

Images - Same gig… Google is your friend - and you can simply paste in a URL to a given image to have it show up in the thread you are in.

Ok, a friend was musing at my social activities and link collecting habits while observing, “you have no life” - considering my info obsessions. So let me take a few moments to explain one of the many ways one can organize info to save sanity…

For starters, I have been finding it useful to play with my latest toy; FriendFeed. From here I can comment on blog posts, reply to Twitter conversations, share my fav links, see friend’s Stumbles and much more… The best part is that it is all from a single interface.

Not only can I track all of my mates activities in one place, but also keep topic focussed discussions rolling in some FriendFeed Rooms; Learn SEO - Search Engine Marketing - Social Media - The Sphinn Zone

Next we want to bring all of that back to a central location, for me that’s with my Google reader – so some widgets and the iGoogle home page get called into action;

 Apparently the injury to Dave's hand has affected more than his typing. For whatever reason he's given me the keys to the blog and entrusted me for the day. Let's all wish him a speedy recovery, but do keep in mind the obvious opportunity to guest post here while his faculties may not be completely intact. Kidding aside, I'm sure Dave would appreciate a few more guest posts while his ability to type is limited.

The Immeasurable Value with the Greater Return – by Steven Bradley

A few months ago here on the trail, there began a discussion on the value of social media marketing. Specifically, looking for more information about the following:

1. How to plan a program ( with a real-world example)
2. How to time manage said program
3. How to measure and manage costs
4. How to measure it (KPI)
5. How to determine ROI (return on investment)

The discussion continued, first with responses to the above questions from some offering social media marketing services and then with a look at the qualitative value of social media. If you need a refresher, you can read each of the three posts;

• The Value of Social Media Marketing
• The Value of Social Media Marketing Part II
• Qualitative research and Social Media Marketing

The Qualitative Approach

I want to continue the discussion, focusing mostly on the last of the posts above, the qualitative value of social media marketing. There's a tendency for some to want to find and measure the direct ROI that comes from playing in social communities, but most of the value is indirect and more difficult to measure.

Are TwitterWhores the wave of the future?

 ..so I was following TechCrunch’s unhealthy obsession with Scoble selling out. This time around it’s not about him selling ad space on his blog, but actually Twitter related;

“he’s experimenting with Twittering adverts for perennial sponsor Seagate. He later twittered “I am just having a little fun getting a conversation about microblog advertising going”

This all made me uneasy and being typographically challenged I created this;

… is that where it’s headed?