I learned this lesson the hard way. I blogged about my breakup that started in February 2007, here, on Vox, and on Yahoo! 360. This was shortly before SXSW 2007.

Blogging was cathartic for me. But it also put my ex on blast, and opened us both up to a lot of questions about why we were splitting. I distinctly remember having uncomfortable conversations at SXSW about what was happening, especially since most of my SXSW crew had met the ex at SXSW 2006. The ex was also drilled by his rather large circle of friends and acquaintances.

I even argued with the ex about whether and where I should blog — Vox was the community where my peoples played; Yahoo! 360 was where his friend’s stayed, though I was connected to his friends there. If I had to blog, he wanted to know, why did I have to blog there and not where my friends were?

It made an uncomfortable situation worse — more for him than for me (win!) — but I decided that I’d rethink being so public about relationships in the future.

Then came Twitter, which, thanks to its ambient intimacy, made staying involved in my friend’s lives a lot easier. Even though we were, in some cases, separated by 2,100+ miles and three time zones, we still had this wonderful sense of connection.

SXSW 2008, then, was markedly different. I didn’t need to catch up on what was happening with my friends. We could just enjoy some real-world face time. I felt my online friendships slowly melting into offline ones.

One friendship in particular had changed in a palpable way. After some Twitter conversations, surprising dreams, and a series of private-plurks, I found myself on a plane to Los Angeles for Labor Day Weekend.

First and foremost, our trip was about seeing each other and having fun as friends. We have always had an easy way with each other, and some of the absolute best times I’ve had since 2005 — the year we met at SXSW — have involved him.

But we also knew this was about a potential love thing shaped by, if not directly attributable, to Twitter and Plurk.

We both live our lives in the digital public, and are generally open about things. We also, however, have a sense of privacy and boundaries. This tension came out in weird ways, particularly around whether and what to tweet. Is it an innocent tweet, or a double-entendre? Do I mention our visit to Frederick’s of Hollywood? What about those hilarious one-liners that are almost too good not to share, but would reveal what we did and how?

Ultimately, we were both concerned with how things would be (mis)construed. And what kinds of intrusive questions would arise from those who know us, and those who think they know us?

And while I’m at it, what about us? I’m not sure I was ready to officially state what was up between us, even though our friends knew instinctively. What’s said offline and hinted at through a carefully-crafted, semi-private tweet is, still, in many ways, deniable. If things didn’t work out, the details would be obscured if not concealed.

But what’s expressed publicly and tagged with my name? That’s big. And brave. And Google-able. And cache-able. It’s a huge leap of faith in our friends, our acquaintances, and most of all, in whatever this is between us.

One of Plurk’s signature features is “Karma,” a rewards system that awards or removes points based on how users interact with the Plurk community.

Plurking daily builds karma. Taking a few hours or a few days away can lower karma. Having plurk-arrhea lowers karma. Invite your friends and your karma goes up. Get de-friended, and your karma goes down. Get your friend request rejected and you lose some more.

Karma, then, is a system that rewards users who practice good community behaviors — being active, but not obnoxious — and penalizes those who don’t.

But the weighting of user activity to calculate Karma has concerned or annoyed some Plurk users. Disappearing karma points = a disincentive to using the site.

I suspect users feel that way because karma is something that you earn. To lose it because of a busy day at work or a web-free vacation feels unfair. Couple that with a lack of transparency — which, much to its credit, Plurk has addressed — and you have a system in which some users opt out of the system of rules because they don’t know which rules they are being penalized for breaking.

I am still intrigued, though, by Plurk’s idea of rewarding or penalizing user behavior algorithmically rather than by community reporting or internal policing. One obvious advantage is that you mitigate some dumb mob effects.

On the other hand, your site runs risk of being perceived as a digital disciplinarian. You’re not the boss of me, dang it! Screw you and the karma-removing-horse you rode in on. I’m taking my ball and going home … or back to Twitter full time.

I think a better karma-style behavior system would:

1. Be transparent about the rules, norms, and expected behaviors.
2. Be very, very obvious about where users can find those rules, norms, and expected behaviors.
3. Always reward for use. Stay neutral on a lack of use. Deduct points only for more serious violations such as obvious spamming, or maybe obvious friend-whoring.

Elsewhere

• Plurk’s “Safe Plurking” Guide
• Plurking Help the Complete Plurk How To Guide for Plurkers old and Plurks Noobs too

After using it for a few hours, I’m torn between loving Plurk’s take on the 140-character update and thinking there’s just too much interface. Plurk does some things beautifully — the Getting Started Guide — for example. And yet, when compared to the simpler Twitter interface, I can’t decide whether Plurk’s features are cool or superfluous.

How Plurk is different

Plurk takes the microblog post and contextualizes it by placing it on a scrolling timeline.

Within the timeline you can view your posts and your friends’ posts. Mousing over an entry reveals the post’s content. The timeline scrolls either with arrow buttons (visible on hover) or by dragging.

As with Pownce, Plurk’s developers have built conversations into the interface. You can post comments on any entry, unless the author has disabled them. Every Plurk post also has a permanent page with comments. I’m a big fan of the comments model. I think they’re far easier to follow than the unthreaded conversations on Twitter.

As with Twitter, Plurk posts are limited to 140 characters. URLs don’t appear to work against your character count. You can easily share Flickr and YouTube content by linking to the URL of the image or video.

Grammar nerds can also rejoice. Twitter’s web interface asks “What are you doing?” I usually feel compelled to answer with a grammatically correct sentence. Plurk lets you choose your verb. Clicking on the verb (they’re color-coded) highlights entries with similar verbs.

You can also add emoticons to your post, though adding “extra exclusive emoticons” requires “karma.”

Community through Karma

To encourage use and interaction, and to build audience, Plurk awards uses a rewards system that it calls “karma.” Tabulated daily, you earn karma by inviting friends and using the site. With karma, you get extra privileges, such as the ability to change your user name, choose another tier of illustrations, and customize your page.

Karma feels like a condescending pat on the head to me, but I see how it can encourage adoption.

Plurk and privacy

Plurk has more nuanced privacy controls than the leader in this space. Twitter’s privacy settings are an all or nothing proposition. Plurk, however, lets you restrict viewing to friends, friends of friends, or to yourself. Plurk (like Pownce) also offers a per-post privacy setting. Even if your profile is public, you can still restrict who sees a particular entry.

Plurk on the desktop

Unlike Twitter, which has Twitterrific, Twhirl (which can post to Pownce), and at least two Firefox extentions, there are no Plurk desktop clients just yet. According to the site, you can send posts from AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, GTalk or Jabber. But I received an error message when I tried to do so.

Bottom line

I think Plurk comes closes to getting the microblogging thing right. It’s more robust than Twitter with its privacy settings, per-post settings and timeline. And yet, the interface still feels clean and simple. Pownce has a more solid file-sharing platform, but Plurk’s interface seems to get out of the way, where Pownce gets in it.

I’d love to see Plurk release an API, a desktop client, and offer SMS integration. Part of what makes Twitter so kick-a** is that it’s not limited to the browser. You can send tweets on the go, or from a specialty app. If Plurk hopes to gain any traction, these additions are key.

What’s your take?

Related entries (Twitter-centric)

• Why I went private on Twitter
• Recommended: “The Big Juicy Twitter Guide”
• On Twitter-ing
• This is why, this is why, this is why I Tweet.
• Twitter meta: It does too have a point