by Jacob Morgan
Koornk is European version (an eerily similar version) of our good friend twitter. I actually just signed up for Koornk not too long ago and while the majority of users appear to be from Croatia (I think) there is a setting that allows you to switch the language over to English. So what do I mean when I say the Koornk is an eerily similar version of twitter? Well, see for yourself.
Now if this isn’t a twitter clone then I don’t know what is. The layout is exactly the same as the twitter layout and the tabs are virtually identical as well. The overall design is pretty simple and sleek and does feel a little cleaner than the twitter UI. The characters are also limited to 150 instead of 140 (probably to make up for typing in @(someones name), and yes the ‘@’ works the same way in Koornk as it does in twitter.
Koornk does have a few neat features though, and to be honest I wish twitter would add a few of these as well. For example, Koornk neatly let’s you put links to your various sites, I know twitter has something similar but it looks a lot cleaner on Koornk. In addition Koornk also supports Open Id and actually lets you post to twitter from Koornk.
It looks like what we may start seeing is vertical growth for “microblogging” platforms. In other words a twitter type platform for various geographic areas, languages, or industries. Think of how search has evolved into a widely vertical market. When you want to find classified, most of the time you go straight to Craigslist instead of Google, when you want to find a car you will probably go to Edmunds.com, etc. In the next few years if “microblogging” takes off we may very well see similar growth. That is of course unless twitter gets it’s act together. Twitter does have the potential to be the Google of “microblogging” but with their lack of new features and frequent downtime’s this may be a perfect opportunity for all the Koornk’s out there.
I put “microblogging” in quotes because I don’t consider it to be a type of blogging, twitter is like a global messaging service, much like AIM or Gtalk. “Twitter isn’t microblogging” it’s messaging.
What do you think about Koornk and the future of twitter?
Thanks for reading