What is a Plurkshop and Why Should I Care?

What do you call it when you get 20 Plurkers together on one thread, all discussing the same subject in detail for an hour or so?

Why it’s a Plurkshop, of course.

The number of Plurkers can vary, I’ve seen Plurkshops that had around 5 people doing most of the talking, and others with 40 or 50 people, all discussing the same subject.

Plurkshops can be on any subject, we’ve had discussions on blogs, CSS, marketing, social media, security, second life, and more. To date there have been 13 Plurkshops; the 14th, coming up this Tuesday, August 12, will be discussing the benefits and challenges of switching your blog to WordPress.

Because you have so many people, all typing at once, Plurkshops can get more than a little confusing. To me it feels like a big family dinner, where everyone starts off talking about the same subject, and then the conversation branches out, with Aunt Bertha and Grandpa Fred talking about one part, while Mom is talking to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Tim about something else, and Dad is shouting to Cousin George (whom everyone, except Cousin George, knows is a little hard of hearing) trying to catch him up on the original topic.

If you’ve ever watched While You Were Sleeping, the dinner table scene is a great example of a Plurkshop.

Yet in spite of, or perhaps because of, all the different conversational threads, Plurkshops end up being very educational. It is especially enlightening to read the summaries afterward because there are almost always threads of discussion that I missed while the Plurkshop was going on.

Paul Chaney, who writes Conversational Media Marketing, donated Plurkshops.com so that we would have a place to gather all the Plurkshop information. It is a great place to read summaries of past Plurkshops or to see what’s coming up soon.

Back when I first started using Plurk, someone asked if I could see a business use for it. My answer then was that I couldn’t, it seemed more of a fun site. Now, my answer would be yes, Plurk has definite business potential.

In fact, plurkshops.com and the link to an actual plurkshop are the first things I show someone who has a business when I’m telling them about Plurk. It has the benefit of not depending on as many variables as statistics from my own Plurk usage, and shows that Plurk can be used for more than just saying “Good morning” or talking about what to eat today.

Teeg is a Social Media Explorer who has been exploring the social part of the web since 1996, when she first discovered chat rooms. She details her exploration of various social media sites on her blog, SU Comments. She is also the author of the 10 Minute Guide to Plurk, a five part series that answers questions other Plurkers had when they were getting started.

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