Welcome to Plurk

October 2008, I received some emails from my two best friends inviting me to sign up to Plurk. I was like, “What??” So I guess I clicked on a link or something and viewed their timeline. My social exposure at this time was limited only to the more popular Friendster, Facebook, Multiply and Blogspot. I had little background on Twitter (What the heck was a Tweet?? Follow who? Where?) and had question marks in my head when I came across the term “micro-blogging”. I was used to full pledged blogging – pouring your heart out, flat out venting, criticizing, pondering. How the hell does one micro-blog? In 140 chars or less?

So I browsed my bestfriends’ timelines, and found it quite confusing. Having to scroll down a Timeline, with miniature posts (much like status messages in FB or shoutouts in Friendster)…It was all new to me. But, as luck would have it, the absence of a boss prompted me to have a little freedom to explore an unchartered territory. But not alone. I “bullied” my nearby officemates into signing up for Plurk too. I emailed my other officemates off-site to sign up to Plurk…. And the rest is history.

Ironically, one would expect that because I was the one who started the Plurk Mania here in the office, that I would have already reached Nirvana. Nope. Because starting December 2008 (roughly 2 months after Plurk took our office by storm), I was on the final stages of my wedding preparations and wasn’t able to login till after the honeymoon I think. So my rising karma at that time (in the 70’s or 80’s I guess) was reduced to… what… 40’s? I dunno. There wasn’t a karma freeze option yet… Wasn’t there? Or even if there was, I didn’t know about it. So, goodbye leading karma.

Then I got pregnant, and because of a sensitive pregnancy, my Plurk time was even more lessened. I decided to freeze my karma somewhere in the 70’s just to be sure. It is from that last karma freeze that I am building up my karma now.

As we speak, Plurk is already a way of life here in the office. This is how we vent, express our frustrations and happiness in short sentences. This is where we connect with our ex-officemates – whether they are still in the Philippines or abroad. In fact, one of our consolations to those who are leaving is “Don’t worry, there’s still Plurk.” Or “We’ll still see you in Plurk everyday.” There have also been quite a number of outings and gimmicks planned over Private Plurks (in fact, one is happening this weekend!)

Oh, and it was just last month that some of us got the hang of Twitter, and even now I still get confused with it. I’m used to the organized conversations in Plurk.

Click –> Mozilla Firefox. Load –> Office Mail. Load –>Plurk. Load –>Facebook. That’s our daily morning ritual.

Written by Eva Dueñas Capistrano, 28, from Philippines. http://www.plurk.com/unicaivah