conversations appear on a timeline. When you click the conversation, you can see all the messages associated with that thread.

newer threads appear on the left, starting at the top and then going down the (vertically) timeline.

conversations with unread comments have a red number beside them. Green, otherwise, indicating the number of responses.

the page title usually auto-refreshes to tell you how many unread comments there are.

when there are new conversations or unread comments, appropriate links appear in the bottom left of the timeline, allowing you to filter

the timeline to show only threads with unread responses or new threads.

you can follow the timeline of anyone you like by becoming a "fan" of theirs. Then threads they start will appear on your timeline too.

guesses "friends" are like "fans" with benefits. You still get to see their timelines but they have to approve it.

what else the difference is between friends/fans?

I think fans see your timeline, but you don't see theirs. Friends see your timeline, and you see theirs

I think that has a lot to do with our particular Plurk crowd, maddylou. (-:

reminds MaddyLou that we're evaluating the distraction factor of microblogging systems. Remember?

*grins* - glad I'm not the only person who claims 'research' for such activities....!

thanks for all the pointers on that - it would seem from first impressions that this is better than twitter...

as a user of both - what are your thoughts Eingang?

I love the threaded nature of Plurk. The quirky, colourful interface has, I confess, grown on me.

as I was commenting just earlier today to someone else, I use them for different things. Plurk is more casual, friendly for me.

I use Twitter more professionally and with a lot less babble.

Plurk's search needs some improvement. Even when I know something exists, I often have trouble finding it.

there also seems to be a time lag between stuff being posted and being indexed for search.

I've dumped Twitter in favour of Plurk,unles I use Ping, then anything I type goes to Twitter too.

so do I - hello AnnaElliott

how combining ECAs and black holes makes sensible?

maybe you should get Gemma plurking then - mweller doesn't come in here.

the proper way to use Plurk is as a tool to try to determine which Eingang is playing out and to chuckle at those in the grips of ...

..to much marking. This latter stops V soon when 08J courses start

if Gemma is spying on her wiki and (very quiet, but well-structured) Moodle forum?