There has been some rumble the last few days about a new service called Plurk. I first noticed it when ping.fm did an update earlier this week and added support for it.

Plurk, like Twitter, is a micro-blog / status service. However rather than display things in a list view, Plurk uses a rather nice timeline view. This fresh approach, in addition to Twitters consistent stability issues has lead people to ask, could Plurk be a twitter killer?

My answer: Sure, it could be. But it still has a long way to go, and will need to offer several additional features. But so far, I’ve really liked it.

Of course, Plurk isn’t the fist service to be considered a “twitter killer”. Pownce and Jaiku as well as other services have all shared the same title. So far, nothing has really been able to touch the king of micro-blogging.

Part of what makes Twitter so unbeatable right now is the number of applications, plugins, and extensions that allow you to user Twitter. You’ll find something twitter related for Firefox, Flock, Google Desktop, iGoogle, Facebook, you can even find widgets that allow you to display your tweets on your personal blog. Not to mention the dozens of other sites out there that will aggregate your twitter data and display it.

What service does everyone else use? I’ve got friends on them all. So far my favorite is Plurk, followed by Ponce and Jaiku, with Twitter dead last.

My Profiles:
Plurk
Pownce
Jaiku
Twitter

iGoogle users now have more themes to chose from thanks to the newly opened iGoogle Theme Directory. In addition to just having more themes, users can now create and sumbit their own custom themes. I wonder how long it will be until we see official themes for TV shows, movies, or even video games.

I bet a World of Warcraft theme will be the first video game based theme we see.

Google has created a version of iGoogle specifically for the iPhone. From the looks of things it is using the same settings as the normal iGoogle page, the only real difference is that everything is displayed in a single column. The address for the iPhone iGoogle page is http://www.google.com/ig/i, however when you access Google from the iPhone it’ll automatically redirect you there.

Source: Google Operating System

Google has updated their mobile website for iPhone users to be, well more iPhone-ish. It’s simple and fast, two great combinations for a mobile phone. Those of you visiting from other phones should still have access to the “standard” Google Mobile website. iPhone users can follow a link at the bottom of the site to view the “Classic” Google page, this is basically the non-mobile version. There’s a link on the classic page to iGoogle for those of you that still like that approach.

Personally, I like the new site better than the old customized mobile page.  I’m sure there will be some unhappy users though. Maybe Google will add a “Classic Mobile” link.

Google’s personalized home page, iGoogle now has a few more themes to choose from. Personally, I’m digging the new Solar System theme. Anyone use use an iGoogle theme? I’d love to hear what everyone else has.

Let’s hope Apple doesn’t get too upset. Google just rebranded a product and used a lowercase I in it’s name. Though considering Google’s CEO sits on Apples Board of Directors, I doubt they’ll have much of an iSSUE.

Anyway, as the title suggest, Google has rebranded the Google Personalized Homepage as iGoogle. According to Googling Blogoscoped, the change happened about 9:00 PM PST last night.