I think many content creators have an uneasy alliance with Twitter. They might like the ability to share thoughts with a wider audience, but dislike having their content and thoughts housed in a proprietary silo. One developer recognized this, and created a service called micro.blog after a successful Kickstarter campaign.
The best summary of micro.blog was contained in a blog post on the site:
Instead of yet another social network, Micro.blog is designed to work with the open web. It’s built on RSS and independent microblogs. It’s about pulling together short posts and making them more useful and easier to interact with. It prioritizes both a safe community of microblogs as well as the freedom to post to your own site.
The service’s About page also explains the concept further:
Instead of trying to be a full social network, Micro.blog is a thin layer that glues the open web together, making it more useful. Micro.blog adds discovery and conversations on top of previously unconnected blog posts.
With micro.blog, you can publish to your own domain name (or publish through micro.blog) and control your own content. Even if you publish to your own domain name, you can always see your posts in a familiar timeline interface at micro.blog or its apps, along with with centralized replies and favorites. In a way, your posts live at two places at once.
You may have already noticed a couple of shorter posts here at 40Tech over the past 24 hours. Those are posts that I initiated through the micro.blog app. Given my time constraints over the last few months, I can see myself posting in this format a bit more frequently. 1 I also realize this could be something I try for a while, but don’t stick with for the long haul. We’ll see. For now, my posts will crosspost to my Twitter account as well.
If you want to give micro.blog a try, you can register. The basic service is free if you don’t need hosting (it may work with some free hosting services, like Tumblr). Micro.blog also offers a $5/month plan if you want them to host your microblog. If you host your own site, you can pay $2 per month for cross posting to Twitter and Facebook.
You can see my microblogging posts here at 40Tech, or at micro.blog/40tech.
Yes, I recognize the irony of describing a microblogging service with a long blog post.↩
Andre says:
From your point of view, whats the difference of micro.blog to services like hootsuite?
January 6, 2018 — 2:09 am
Evan Kline says:
I’ll admit I’m not too familiar with Hootsuite, but by my understanding, Hootsuite is more of a tool to manage various social media accounts in one tool. Micro.blog lets you have your social media presence on your own site, but then glues it together with other people’s micro-posts in one place, so you can follow, comment, etc., using a familiar timeline.
January 6, 2018 — 9:29 am
Andre says:
OK, I understand… thanks
January 8, 2018 — 3:42 pm
Bertrand says:
What is your workflow to post on your microblog. Your post here on your blog and crosspost on Micro.blog and Twitter ? Thanks
May 24, 2018 — 3:50 am
Evan Kline says:
My workflow has really evolved over the past couple months. Regular posts automatically get cross-posted to micro.blog, but I usually then manually post to Twitter with a comment or two. For “tweet-style” short posts, I just post to micro.blog with the app, and check the box to cross-post to Twitter.
May 24, 2018 — 2:06 pm
Bertrand says:
Ok thanks. Well if you post directly to micro.blog, how do you import your micropost in this blog ? Other question : how you hide the title for these posts in the blog ? Thanks again
May 26, 2018 — 3:52 am
Evan Kline says:
That’s all done with micro.blog and the micro.blog app. There is a setting in micro.blog to cross-post to your blog, and by default if you post with the micro.blog app it won’t post a title.
May 27, 2018 — 8:13 am