I was introduced to planworld late last year. I’ve used it pretty regularly since then, and will continue to (despite it’s every dwindling participation level) in addition to amhpub and likely check that more often. Amhpub no doubt has significant technological advantages over planworld, and allows for a level of public dialogue that is not possible there, but at the same time, there is a definite elegance to the simplicity of planworld:
Nothing is ever more than a single click away.
You can easily mantain a list of other people you want to keep track of, and are immediately notified whenever they update their plan.
Everyone’s user name is the same, so that there is never any question of who wrote something.
A mechanism is available for simple private dialogues.
There is a large network of recent alums who are active on planworld.
As much as it pains me to say it, I imagine that many or all of these elements could be instituted on amhpub quite easily. At that time, I will migrate to amhpub full-time. In the meantime, I will continue to use planworld and check amhpub occasionally, and invite all of you to come and check it out as well.
http://neon.note.amherst.edu/planworld/
3 responses so far ↓
1 Stephen Stewart (sastewart09) // May 7, 2008 at 7:05 pm
You make a great point to bring up planworld. It does do the job that Amhpub claims to tackle of keeping non-anonymous dialogue flowing with a graceful simplicity. The greatest caveat is that it’s mostly underground. In my freshman year, I was introduced to planworld by my senior friends and it was a phenomenon facing both the 08s and 09s to try to discover this thing and make it live. There was a short attempt at resurrecting it in the second semester of my freshman year, but enough of the newer students weren’t keen to it so it has a small following but lots of recent alums are all about it.
2 sklanfer09 (sklanfer09) // May 7, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Thanks for letting people know about Planworld. I think that a bit of publicity for it could do it a lot of good. Even though I like AmhPub so far, I will say that Planworld is a far better time-waster. Also, it’s a great way to keep in touch with alumni friends.
3 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // May 7, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I can’t say that I know much about Planworld, but one of its features you named is true for AmhPub as well. There is never a question about who wrote something - check the url of the blog. It will always give the blogger’s Amherst username. Comments are identified by email addresses as well.
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