Nothing Interesting to Say? Plinky Hopes to Change That
Like it or not. You're a writer. You're creating content on a daily basis, updating your Facebook status, commenting on blogs, sending tweets. Social networking requires that level of communication. But as a writer, you're also a potential victim for writer's block, a condition that plagues even the most prolific authors.
The next time you find your desire to write lacking, Plinky may be just the inspiration you need.
What does the Plinky team know about inspiring bloggers? CEO and founder Jason Shellen has been involved in blogging since its humble beginnings. He worked at Pyra Labs, the company that developed Blogger, one of the first blogging platforms. When the company was acquired by Google, Shellen became the product manager for Google Reader, a product that millions of people use to read blogs every day. Later he spent some time at LiveJournal.
Shellen doesn't just know blogging, he's lived it. Now he's hoping to inspire others.
Where Does the Inspiration Come From?
Plinky is simple and straightforward. Every day, the service delivers writing prompts in hopes of eliciting short introspective answers. If Twitter is "What are you doing?", Plinky is "What do you think about this?"
Current prompts range from making a mixtape of favorite songs to defending your vice. Users compose responses within Plinky using text, images, maps, or other objects that help them craft an answer. Then, those answers can be easily repurposed to other microblogging and blogging services.
But Plinky also manages to provide a venue for social interaction of its own. Users have a stream of responses that are publicly viewable, they can follow other users, and they can favorite responses. Plinky also provides immediate access to other answers to the question you're considering - providing even more sources of inspriration. For a seemingly simple service, there is quite a bit going on.
Louis Gray got an early preview of the service. So if you're interested in more details on all Plinky has to offer, his thorough walkthrough of Plinky provides a solid overview.
In our testing, Plinky proved to be entertaining. The initial prompts are fun, inspiring good crosstalk among Plinky's early adopters. Reading others' responses proved equally compelling.
Whether that interest is sustainable remains to be seen. Facebook has found some of its success by prompting users with an endless barrage of surveys. There's no reason that Plinky can't do the same.
In the long-term, it will be interesting to see what types of users gravitate to the site and continue to return on a daily basis. In the short-term, however, one thing is for certain: with a known entity like Shellen involved, Plinky is sure to develop a rapid following.
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The concept of Plinky is very good!
I think this service is pretty cool, and the inspiration and source materials for blogs area is one I think will grow in the coming months.
I've created http://www.goodbaad.com with a similar intention. After reading Andrew Marr's book "My Trade" his chapter on slow news days explains how statistics are a great way to build a headline.
So Good Baas is a constant source of headline stats "50 Cent is 60% Baad" is a great starting point for a discussion.
Te aim is to allow bloggers to incorporate widgets and mine the date to provide statistics on which to hang articles and debates.
I'm sure we'll be seeing more of this type of thing very soon.
"Facebook has found some of its success by prompting users with an endless barrage of surveys. There's no reason that Plinky can't do the same." I 'm testing Plinky out right now and will write a full preview when i am through. But right now, i must advise that Plinky should not go the way of facebook by prompting users with irrelevant surveys.
Plinky, the bloggers inspiration feeding tool is made âto help fight bloggerâs blockâ. Will it win?
Plinky Feeds Your Blogging Inspiration: The Fight Against Bloggerâs Block
People who spend their lives on the internet generally don't have anything interesting to write about. Plinky isn't likely to solve this problem. The best solution for writer's block is to get away from the computer (and get away from Plinky) and LIVE life for a change!
Looks kinda like Paul Stamatiou's startup social writer's block solution skribit.com but for very short form!
This sounds like a promising service. LiveJournal has a daily "Writer's Block" prompt which is quite popular. In any blog, content is important; a source of ideas can be handy, and you can just pick and choose the ones that match your blog's subject area. I've been writing about what makes a good blog, too:
http://gaiatribe.geekuniversalis.com/2009/01/23/good-blogs-and-bad-blogs/
i would like to see some more thought provoking, creative questions. but, i can see the promise -- http://web-poet.com/2009/01/23/plinky/
This concept will flame out quickly. There's nothing substantial here to build a new company on. It could have easily been a Twitter app or Facebook app.
I can't believe they got $1.5 million for this. Just goes to show if you've had success in the past, you can get funded with any lame idea you come up with.