With Twitter being the first major microblogging platform, they were also the first one to implement the “everyone stream”, a warp-speed listing of the most recent messages on the system, constantly being updated. As other platforms have popped up, they’ve each addressed the everyone stream in a different way.
Today we’ll take a look at several popular microblogging platforms (Twitter, Pownce, Plurk) and how they handle the everyone stream.
Twitter calls it Everyone and the stream is available at http://twitter.com/public_timeline.
All tweets on the first page are marked as being posted “5 seconds ago”. At the top you’ll find the standard tweet entry box and each message listed has the favorite and reply icons, just like your normal timeline.
If you want to navigate through older pages of tweets in the public timeline, chances are you won’t be able to keep up. As soon as you click page 2 the messages you just saw will already be 3-4 pages deep.
If you’re looking for new people to follow, you’re better off using search.twitter.com and doing a lookup based on keyword or hashtag.
An RSS feed for this stream is available, just like any other Twitter stream, but I can’t identify any reason why you would want to subscribe to it.
Twitter will retain the style and design you have selected when viewing this page.
Pownce
Pownce calls it Public Notes and the stream is available at http://pownce.com/public/.
All notes on Pownce’s public page are marked as being posted “just now!”, with the exception of the last, marked as “2 min ago”. The velocity of notes appears to match that of Twitter, but it can be much slower at times.
Users cannot post their own original notes from this page, but they can reply to or forward a public note. Also, because of the way Pownce threads replies to messages, this view actually encourages users to reply to notes because the original poster can easily track new replies to a message.
If a user feels like policing Pownce, they can also easily report any note that is displayed in the public stream. This is great for helping to ward off spam.
An RSS feed is available for all public notes, but it is a steady stream of new content arriving every few minutes and just doesn’t make sense to subscribe to.
Pownce retains the theme you have selected when displaying this page.
Plurk
Plurk calls it Interesting Plurkers and the stream is available at http://www.plurk.com/browse.
All Plurks are displayed in the typical timeline with the ability to scroll backwards as far as the user wants. What is most interesting about this page on Plurk is all the other information they put in front of you. A hidden drop-down menu allows you to filter the Plurks being displayed by gender, age, language, city state or country.
Underneath the timeline you’ll find stats on Plurkers and Plurks. The first category covers popular Plurkers, most viewed Plurkers, new Plurkers, random Plurkers and Plurkers with the most Karma. The second category covers the most responded to Plurks and the most recent 
Plurks.
Users cannot post their own updates from this view, but they can reply to Plurks shown in the timeline or navigate to individual Plurk pages for those covered in the two categories below the timeline.
Traffic of new Plurks remains constant and their is no RSS feed for this view.
Plurk does not retain the theme and stylings added by a user for this page. When viewing this section, it takes on the color scheme of the rest of the public facing website.
Why Does It Matter?
To me, the everyone stream is where I like to go when I need direction or a source of action. On Twitter I have been able to build a fairly strong community, but I haven’t met as many people through the other services, which is why I turn to the everyone stream. It allows me to get a finger on the pulse of the platform and see what people are talking about. It also introduces me to topics and people I might not otherwise have had a chance to meet via my own postings.
If you are an individual or a business looking to get started with following users, this may be the best place for you to begin. Searches for keywords can also be beneficial, but this gives you the latest information on who is using the platform and what they are using it to talk about.
How Do You Use The Everyone Stream?
Is this the first place you start when logging on? Do you avoid it like the plague? What do you find to be useful about this stream of content?
Rob is one of the founders of Microblink. His interests include how people are using microblogs and the community growing around them.
Mike writes and edits for Microblink day-in and day-out. He is known as the marketing guy and handles most of the microblogging accounts.
Mark writes development-oriented posts as well as news items. He's not afraid to dive headfirst into technical topics for the sake of the team.
I am a big fan of friendfeed and their new real time feed so I have found myself using that when I am at my computer to get a real time look at what is going on around the interweb. of course I also use twitter.