噗浪技術長Amir專訪中文翻譯按這裡

By Jeremy Chen

Q：As one of the founding member of Plurk，how did you meet Kan and Alvin？What's your expertise?

A：Kan contacted me and wanted me to work on this new idea - - of a site named Plurk that aggregated a person's life. At first I didn't think much of the idea, since I was busy studying at the university and doing some other projects. But after some time (and especially after looking at some of Alvin's mockups of the timeline) - - I began to think that the idea was really good. I also liked the crazy universe that Plurk is (not many companies have a headless dog as their logo!)

My expertise is development (both frontend and backend). I have coded since I was 12 and I have always found it very fascinating.

Q：When you heard about the concept of Plurk，do you think its cool? How do you describe about plurk concept when you meet a someone never use plurk？

A：At first it's a strange concept - why would you want to share your life with others? But after using Plurk I really liked it because you learn to known friends better by following their thoughts and their doings - it's really a window into other people's life (and a window into your own life).

I tell my friends that Plurk is a way to share their life with friends - in small chunks. Plurk is also a great way to find new friends or even true love.

Q：From the establishment to the present，which technically problems frustrate you? When Plurk Crashes，did you got letters that plurker criticizing you?

A：The database has been the most frustrating element. We have lots and lots of data, so it's a real pain and can be frustrating at times :-)

Some of our users get very upset when Plurk crashes - - which is understandable. And yes, we have been criticized for downtime and bugs, but we really try out best to keep bugs and downtime to a minimum. We love our users and we understand when they become mad :-)

Q：Plurk search function on the line again! Compared to the previous search function, what makes this special?

A：It's in real time and it searches millions of plurks. For example, one could search after "swine flu taipei" to get an overview over what people are thinking about the swine flu in and around taipei.

One can also use it to open up a window in one's own life: I can for example type "amix shares" to see what I have shared in the past or "amix feels" to see what I have felt.

Q：twitter in the United States is so hot that has almost become synonymous with micro-blog。Exception of the timeline, How do you define the difference between twitter?

A：Twitter is about broadcasting, Plurk is about conversations. Twitter is about popular hollywood stars promoting themselves, while Plurk is  about common people hanging out.

Q：From a technical perspective, Which plurk function is now what you think was poor, but now very popular? Or which features you think was good，Plurker do not like that idea right now？

A：Our search was very poor so it wasn't used that much. But with the latest release it's used by a lot of users and we have a lot of great feedback on it.

Q：Have you ever been to Taiwan? What do you think about the first impression of Taiwan?

A：I haven't been to Taiwan, but I really want to visit it.  The Taiwan plurker's I have plurked with seem to be really friendly.

Generally I am interested in Asian culture and I will probably start taking Chinese lessons soon (even thought it's a really hard language to master).

My girl-friend is from South Korea, she is also on Plurk :-)

Q：Your own personal Profile page say that you are a ninja ， is that mean you know about Kung-Fu?

A：That's mostly for fun, I am a great fan of Bruce Lee thought :-) But I have also trained karate for about 2 years.

Q：Which important plurk feature will lauch this year?

A：We have so many great ideas and I really don't know where we'll be this year. But I think real-time search might be the best feature in 2009 - at least for now ;-)

Q：What's your goal for Plurk, other than trying to keep it from crashing？

A：I want to change the life of people for the better and I think Plurk can do this.

Q：Do you have any suggestion for people who want to be good at programming?

A：Never give up. It generally takes a long time to master something -  around 10 years. Even such geniuses as Mozart used around 13 years to become really great (Mozart started composing music as a 4 year old and he began to produce world-class music 13 years after).

Programming, like anything else, is a passion - - for me it's more a hobby than a job and I think one must feel this way before one can master programming (or any other profession).

And start with a fun project, such as making a game, a web site and do it in a fun language such as PHP or Python.


Related Articles

‧Interview with Kan，founder and CEO of Plurk（by Jeremy Chen）
‧Interview with Alvin Woon,design lead of Plurk（by Tenz Shih）