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> There's a better way: a network of independent microblogs. Short posts like tweets but on your own web site that you control. Either I don't get it, or their

> There's a better way: a network of independent microblogs. Short posts like tweets but on your own web site that you control. Either I don't get it, or their service is not what they advertise. After reading that line, I would expect a somewhat federated blogging platform where you can set up your own server, and it joins the 'network of independent microblogs'. But I can't find any instructions on how to do that?!? So I am wondering if 'on your own web site' rather means something like you can buy a custom domain for your profile page on that service?

SyneRyder 8y ago
> where you can set up your own server, and it joins the 'network of independent microblogs' It's a bit like that. You can configure the official Mac or iOS Micro.Blog app to post microposts to your own Wordpress-API compatible website if you want. You can submit the RSS feed from your website to your Micro.Blog account and have that feed into the Micro.Blog timeline - and if you do that, it's actually free to be a member. It's difficult to explain all that and intimidating to non-programmers (there's a lot of non-technical users on Micro.Blog), so I think they focus on the Micro.Blog hosting & official apps as the easiest way to get started. There's a lot of Micro.Blog users for whom self-hosted-Wordpress/Jekyll is more hassle than they want, and they'd rather pay $5/mth to have that hassle go away. You might be interested in reading about IndieWeb [1]. Behind the scenes Micro.Blog uses the W3 Micropub [2] specification and other IndieWeb standards for posting microposts and federating Webmentions across websites, if that's something you're interested in. [1] https://indieweb.org/ https://indieweb.org/ [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/micropub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/micropub/
- arendtio 8y ago
  Okay, that sounds like we need a micropub enabled blog software now :-) In general, I am a huge fan of this business model (federated + strong commercial players). It just seems that the federated part looks a bit weak at the moment. I think changing that should be a priority for micro.blog as I believe much of the negativity here at HN comes from the not so clear difference from the traditional services. So far I have found this [1] which doesn't look very mature ('Early alpha'), but hey, it's a start. Thanks for clarifying the situation. https://github.com/andjosh/webpage-micropub-to-github https://github.com/andjosh/webpage-micropub-to-github
lunchables 8y ago
>After reading that line, I would expect a somewhat federated blogging platform where you can set up your own server, and it joins the 'network of independent microblogs'. This is exactly what I was hoping for and now I'm super disappointed.
djsumdog 8y ago
Yea, I mean if this were a paid service with full ActivityPub and OStatus support (and could interact with Mastodon, Plemore, GNU Social, et. al.) then that would be something different. But a $5 a month, non-open source, closed, siloed system? I'd recommend going back to the drawing board and use more off-the-shelf stuff. Create a payment gateway to setup and maintain a Mastodon or Plemore instance, with a backend that automatically sets up the domain and handles software updates. Yes, there are other services which do this, but there is plenty of room to do it better. Creating a new micro-twitter is pretty much a non-starter at this point.

SyneRyder 8y ago

> where you can set up your own server, and it joins the 'network of independent microblogs' It's a bit like that. You can configure the official Mac or iOS Micro.Blog app to post microposts to your own Wordpress-API compatible website if you want. You can submit the RSS feed from your website to your Micro.Blog account and have that feed into the Micro.Blog timeline - and if you do that, it's actually free to be a member. It's difficult to explain all that and intimidating to non-programmers (there's a lot of non-technical users on Micro.Blog), so I think they focus on the Micro.Blog hosting & official apps as the easiest way to get started. There's a lot of Micro.Blog users for whom self-hosted-Wordpress/Jekyll is more hassle than they want, and they'd rather pay $5/mth to have that hassle go away. You might be interested in reading about IndieWeb [1]. Behind the scenes Micro.Blog uses the W3 Micropub [2] specification and other IndieWeb standards for posting microposts and federating Webmentions across websites, if that's something you're interested in. [1] https://indieweb.org/ https://indieweb.org/ [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/micropub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/micropub/

arendtio 8y ago
Okay, that sounds like we need a micropub enabled blog software now :-) In general, I am a huge fan of this business model (federated + strong commercial players). It just seems that the federated part looks a bit weak at the moment. I think changing that should be a priority for micro.blog as I believe much of the negativity here at HN comes from the not so clear difference from the traditional services. So far I have found this [1] which doesn't look very mature ('Early alpha'), but hey, it's a start. Thanks for clarifying the situation. https://github.com/andjosh/webpage-micropub-to-github https://github.com/andjosh/webpage-micropub-to-github

lunchables 8y ago

>After reading that line, I would expect a somewhat federated blogging platform where you can set up your own server, and it joins the 'network of independent microblogs'. This is exactly what I was hoping for and now I'm super disappointed.

djsumdog 8y ago

Yea, I mean if this were a paid service with full ActivityPub and OStatus support (and could interact with Mastodon, Plemore, GNU Social, et. al.) then that would be something different. But a $5 a month, non-open source, closed, siloed system? I'd recommend going back to the drawing board and use more off-the-shelf stuff. Create a payment gateway to setup and maintain a Mastodon or Plemore instance, with a backend that automatically sets up the domain and handles software updates. Yes, there are other services which do this, but there is plenty of room to do it better. Creating a new micro-twitter is pretty much a non-starter at this point.