Who's on micro.blog?

I’m not sure I’ll stay with it. I don’t get a lot of interaction. Oddly, I like it as a gateway to mastodon.social. I syndicate my blog posts through micro.blog to mastodon.social.

What I like about micro.blog is the lack of “like” buttons. Social media seems to have focused on a feedback cycle and people, myself included, are wired to get that satisfying ping in response to posts. As a result of using micro.blog I am sort of rewiring my brain to be satisfied with adding to my page without immediate gratification. I like the simplicity.

I like the general idea behind micro.blog - controlling your own info, pics, etc, and posting out to social media from there - but I see no advantages for it over a microblog-setup (for free or cheap) over at Wordpress.com. If you’re looking for a spot from which to cross post to Insta, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. you can post to more SM sites with Wordpress than micro.blog.

And if you want to make longer blogposts with images microblog makes you post them at the end of the post, while regular blogs let you intersperse them as you like with text.

It’s also a more limited and primitive system, with fewer options and more limited themes.

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You can use images inline on Micro.blog hosted blogs (and external), so not sure where you are getting this information.

Default themes, yes they are limited, but Micro.blog is now rendered with the Hugo engine so you can use Custom themes. Searching the Hugo site for custom themes or Github gives you hundreds of options to choose from.

Also, I am @joshsullivan on Micro.blog

Must have changed; you used to only be able to place them at the end of posts.

The themes are still extremely limited compared to Wordpress, even the more locked-down free/commercial themes on Wordpress.com, mainly because the blogging system is extremely limited in comparison.

Manton Reece created micro.blog as an alternative blogging platform that lets users retain their data and send it out if desired to social media. But while it can post out to some major platforms (eg Twitter, Facebook, Medium) it still can’t post out to Instagram or bring in galleries from Flickr or Smugmug, which Wordpress has been able to do for years. And as a social network in itself it’s way behind free options like Wordpress.com or Tumblr (not to mention Twitter et al)

So to me, for blogging it’s a more limited setup with more primitive customizations, and no real advantages over something like a Wordpress site with a microblogging theme.

I’m curious if you’ve looked at the Hugo Themes page, to me it’s almost a side by side comparison with WordPress. Not to mention due to being an SSG, pages load much faster.

Yes, I’ve seen the themes, and I’ve seen a lot of micro.blog pages, including yours. The blogging system is less sophisticated and the intra-network social aspect seems lacking. And as I said before while the idea behind micro.blog is admirable I see no appreciable advantages of it over a Wordpress.com microblog, with some real limitations.

Simplicity is the point of Micro.blog. As for me, I went back to my WordPress hosting blog and I’ve connected the RSS feed to micro.blog.

So far, I am supporting the service because it is intriguing, I like the idea of alternatives to Twitter and Facebook, and I want to see where it goes.

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I have mixed feelings about the lack of like buttons. On the one hand, as you say, it makes the service peaceful.

One thing I hate about Facebook is weeding through the swamp of likes and reactions notifications to get a couple of comments that I want to read and reply to.

Indeed, sometimes even the likes here can be noise.

On the other hand, the lack of likes makes the service awfully quiet. Most days I go online and get no replies or reactions to my posts at all.

I’ve got an account https://micro.blog/Denny . I don’t pay but send posts from my two blogs beardystarstuff.net and beardyguycreative.com/blog there. Mostly the first.

Also, in reading this thread and the various thoughts on micro.blog I ended up writing a post about Micro.blog, the open web, and social media: http://beardyguycreative.com/blog/2019/08/20/945/

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found this discussion as I am trialing out MB.

I am checking out this post , does that mean that my blog has to fit into one of these pre-defined categories ?

Nope, you can blog about whatever you like.

I’m no longer using micro.blog, btw. It’s a fine service, but not for me.

I’m posting this update because this topic is seeing some action recently. I wish I could edit the first post, but alas that does not seem to be possible with Discourse.

I’m a very happy micro.blog user, three years or more.

Lisa
@agilelisa

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Exploring micro.blog, did a search of MPU folks on micro.blog, came upon this post, followed @MitchWagner and see tons of posts in micro.blog :slight_smile: What makes you jump back in?

I haven’t really jumped back in. I have an automated set-and-forget feed from my Tumblr to Micro.blog. Every few weeks I remember to go on Micro.blog and check for replies.