I’m quite interested to learn how people use Micro.blog. Main blog? Side blog? If side blog, where’s the main blog? And what does it look like? And is it also a Hugo blog? And if not, why not? And why have two, anyway? If you’re interested in discussing, reply.
@combatdavey I hope you get some replies! There are so many different ways to juggle things. Personally, I like everything in a single place. One domain, all my stuff. But having a separate micro or photo blog in addition to a “full” blog is also common.
@manton I’m looking forward to reading what comes through. The TL;DR of why I asked is that being here has made me think more seriously about how I want to use the web going forward.
@combatdavey I pump everything into it — posts, photos, missives formerly known as “tweets”, podcast, movie/book/videogame logs etc. — leaving a kind of recent firehose on the homepage, but using filters and categories to keep it all sorted and pushing out to places like Mastodon. If I had a very distinct project, I’d consider setting up a second blog/site, but I like have everything in one place and once I sorted through the Micro.blog idiosyncrasies, I’ve been pretty happy with it. And @manton is a hoss on support.
@combatdavey I have a main blog that I’ve been running for years off a WordPress installation. When I found out Manton was running Micro.blog, I immediately signed up. I actually have four blogs here. For very specific things. Well I suppose one of them is non-specific. Kind of a general purpose blog. The other one is for skateboarding, one is for science fiction reading, and one is for a personal gaming podcast. I love that podcasting is so well integrated into this platform. It’s really very good. Using Wavelength with my phone and a decent plug-in microphone really encourages me to record pretty frequently. I’ve considered moving my main blog here, but there’s almost 1000 entries and the two systems don’t really play that well together.
@poploser I appreciate you taking the time to answer. As you probably assume, I am trying to… reconfigure how I use the web, especially the parts of it that I write into/on.
@combatdavey It’s my main blog and I have it go out to Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. I love how a shorter post, just gets posted to the social sites and if it is a bit longer, turns into a blog post that folks can click on to go to your blog.
@tucker That’s how I’m doing it right now except the Mastodon part. Still, I am wondering what the point of any of it is. Thanks for replying, btw!
@combatdavey I think a high percentage of people here on Micro.blog are trying to do the same thing. I’ve really been reassessing where and how I publish things, and even how I federate things. After last week, I think I’m gonna be a little bit more guarded about where I federate posts.Not that I’m really saying anything particularly controversial.
@poploser Also, fun fact: I also wrote a book for Invisible. Unfortunately, Robbie and I had a series of major disagreements that led to the book never getting published. I’m man enough, now, to admit that it was mostly my fault due to substance/MH issues.
@combatdavey you know how it is. You can post the most innocuous thing, or just say something about an activity that you enjoyed, and if it’s posted out there for the world to see there’s no telling what kind of lunatic is going to chime in. I think that’s why I prefer it here on Micro.blog, and in some small private message forums amongst smaller groups of people.
@bloftin2 It sucks, but that’s the trade-off. Big platform = bigger userbase/audience = higher theoretical reach/higher chance of [insert bad things here]. Ten years ago I was cognizant of and sensitive to the trade-off but not so worried/sensitive that I didn’t want to be there. How things change.
@combatdavey I use micro.blog for my main site. micro.blog has so many great features. It’s the Swiss army knife of indie blogging, and a key reason why I’m writing faster.
@combatdavey Mine could be considered a side side, as my “main blog” is on Blot. I use Micro.blog for, well, micro posts. But in terms of volume and frequency, Micro.blog gets far more usage. I’d like to combine them someday.
@combatdavey I’m still figuring out all the possibilities with micro.blog. I blogged for years on blogger, then on WordPress on my own site, and on Substack. What brought me here was wanted to blog shorter stuff as well as the long essays I normally write, and I didn’t like that Substack sent out my posts automatically as email (I’m pretty sure this is controllable, but I never figured out how). I also didn’t like being on someone else’s platform. I considered starting a WordPress site, but life is too short to deal with all the ins and outs of WordPress. I wanted something simple, design-wise. So I’m here now and have a blog for my writing and another that is for family and friends that is more day-to-day–they get a weekly newsletter. The blog for my more formal blogging I gather up into a weekly newsletter on Substack to send out to my followers. I may switch away from Substack and use the newsletter option here, but I like to add in commentary introducing each post, and I haven’t figured out how to do that here yet. I have intermittently tried broadcasting my Substack newsletter to various social media sites, but I’m taking a break from social media right now. I sometimes think about doing a podcast. I’m hoping to get everything here in micro.blog eventually.
@combatdavey I use MB as my central blog/hub. I just started experimenting with a second MB for a 365-photo-a-day blog. I’m unsure about the pros and cons of a second blog, so I just thought I’d try it for a while. I’ll run a separate blog through the year and make a decision next January. My only thought for a second blog was to keep it clean and straightforward, with one focus, just a photo a day, and have my main blog link to it. Having one main blog do everything could get messy but I think if it’s done right, very doable. So many options! I think it really boils down to what your purpose is for a blog. I have no interest in monetizing my blog or how many visitors I get, which really changes things. My blogging is mainly a hobby for me, and if it helps/inspires a few people, I’m happy.
@combatdavey I’m retired, and I have no need to promote anything I do, nor attract any followers. Nor do I have a need to monetize anything. MB is my replacement for any and all social media, because it can do most anything. I vaguely understand the Fediverse but have no interest in Mastodon, Blue Sky, or anything else of that nature. I have two blogs: one I consider “professional” where I comment on my career interests and/or current events of the day (mostly cultural/arts issues), and one I consider “personal” for friends and family - an “X/Twitter” replacement, if you will. I send out weekly newsletters from both. I also have a single-page blog which contains pertinent biographical data should someone show an interest. The option of short videos and podcasts is also nice if I can figure out what might interest me or others. I am coming from my Wordpress site, which I hope to deprecate and eventually abandon over the next year or so.
@combatdavey It’s my only blog and I don’t crosspost anywhere. I mostly post quotes from movies that pop in my head. I like that I don’t know if I have any followers or if anyone reads my stuff, unless they reply.
@combatdavey I have my main blog on Micro.blog. I use that for short posts (like what I would post to social media platforms) and long-form posts (though I need to write more of those). I treat this site as my main space online.
I have a second blog (also on Micro.blog) specifically for my zines and creative projects. This blog was formally on WordPress, but I got tired of the technical maintenance. Exporting my posts from WordPress and importing to Micro.blog was pretty easy. Just some formatting to clean up in some posts.
Posts from both blogs get cross-posted to Mastodon and Bluesky.
@combatdavey I use micro.blog for everything, though I have a long trail of abandoned “projects” which are still live since they were static and there’s basically no cost to leaving them in that state. In my spare time I’ve been working on a half-blog half-art-project half-museum which I think I will end up building entirely in hugo and hosting on a subdomain, because I need more control over the structure than micro.blog can give me, and because I don’t need or want a second “first class” presence on the fediverse.
@combatdavey Blot.im. It’s a blog built out of text files and photos in a Dropbox (or Google Drive, or GitHub) folder on your computer.
@combatdavey Right? Support replies from the developer have been kind of flakey over the years, but the service has been rock-solid.
@combatdavey mu blog is hosted on my own webspace and I import a special feed into micro.blog. I use MB as my social timeline. The blog also uses Hugo under the hood. I started with Jekylll but got fed up with ruby issues a d slow build times.
@drwalt I tried/failed to like Wordpress like ten times. I had a newsletter on Revue for a while and was a Substacker for a bit — but Revue died and the way Substack ran their business in re: platforming nazis didn’t work for me. So far I like Micro.blog, but I haven’t been writing long posts.
@combatdavey my microblog is at https://jonhays.me and my long-form blog is https://jonathanhays.me. Long form is hosted on Wordpress because that’s what it’s been for like 15 years and I don’t have time to move it.
@kalikambo I know, but I did my years in alt/indie media and when I left I kind of… threw the baby out with the bathwater.
@combatdavey Besides project-specific sites, I use three.
rscottjones.com is my online home, still in Wordpress. It has longer form posts and lots of pages.
rscottjon.es is an experimental set of public notes. I run this using Obsidian Publish.
rsjon.es is my micro.blog, which I use more like social media, with shorter posts.
@rscottjones Appreciate you taking the time to answer. All of these replies are making me think a lot about how I spend my online time and where I want to put my words.
@combatdavey I use Wordpress for longer posts and Micro.blog for short posts. I’d love to merge these into a single site, but I haven’t figured out how to keep the short posts from obscuring the longer essays. Feels like a great opportunity for Micro.blog if they could solve this.
@combatdavey @robertbreen Yes! This is why I’m excited about the upcoming Bayou theme. There need to be easier options for having a single blog that isn’t overwhelmed with short posts.
>@combatdavey Mu use has evolved over 13 months. Right now, my main Micro.blog is a catch-all from the three blogs I post to every day. I also use Scribbles and Bear Blog. My Mastodon posts appear on the timeline, but not in my blog. I have a single page Micro,blog using the Gateway theme as a bio page that I link to from my other blogs. Lastly, I have another single page Micro.blog, just for links to posts on a single topic, the app, Obsidian.
@manton @robertbreen @combatdavey I may be just a dense old man, but would somebody explain to me why it’s so hard just to have two blogs, one for long posts and one for short posts? Is it that you don’t want your audiences to have to go to two places? Couldn’t you use a sidebar link to allow easy switching from one to the other? Perhaps I’ll have to see the Bayou theme live, and then maybe I’ll see the light.
@apoorplayer @robertbreen @combatdavey There’s nothing wrong with having two separate blogs. But it can be convenient to have everything in one place. It’s a personal preference, totally fine if we each want something a little different.
@combatdavey Because you asked, Micro.blog hosts my main blog and a topic-specific side blog all under my own domain. I love how seamless and easy it all is and that people can reply to me from other places if they want.
@combatdavey Thanks for asking this. The replies have been helpful. I’m fairly new to Micro.blog and while I haven’t posted a lot yet, just being here has helped me work through my thoughts on what I want my online presence to be. I expect it will continue to evolve though.
I have just one blog (besides tests), but this is one of the things I’ve been debating. My first inclination is to separate out my posts along something like professional/personal lines, but I’m not sure that’s driven from a healthy mental space.
Micro.blog works seamlessly with Mastodon and Bluesky, which was a big draw for me.
@combatdavey just coming back to blogging after quite a long time away and intend to have 2-3.
Just started one which has turned out more of a photo blog, but may hive the photos off into a second, and am planning a longer-form third to blog about my wandering through my PhD.
@combatdavey really interesting to see what everybody else has been doing, thank you for sparking the conversation
@littorally Thanks for your response, and you’re welcome for the spark. I’m actually quite surprised my little post got this much chatter happening.
@combatdavey My main blog is a catchall. Mainly it’s a lot of links. But I also post personal observation, reviews, photos, whatever.
I experiment with a second blog, mitchellaneous.net for memes, vintage ads and photos, and other media I find around the internet. I have friends who enjoy receiving that kind of thing in email, and Micro.blog’s newsletter platform is great for that.
@combatdavey FINALLY - don’t expect it all to make sense.
Everything starts at philpin.com - a domain that has been in place since 1999.
At the philpin.com domain ….
john.philpin is my aggregator and syndicator
so stuff like Reels and Lettrboxd and Substack are all aggregated to the blog
PLUS
anything on my blog is syndicated out to Threads, Mastodon, Tumblr and Bluesky
I don’t syndicate to LinkedIN
Micro.Blog is my main blog - long form and short form - over time I have imported various old blogs into it. I don’t think I am done yet - let alone whether I want to do tat for the likes of the twitter and instagram archives into it. (Probably not.)
Blot is a beautifully simple app - beyond my micro.blog and the spaces I have imported over time - drop box based site is everything else. Why the two? Never really answered.
Substack is my ‘newsletter’ - different behavior and although I could use Substack as a blog - I like to keep my newsletters separate
Documents are a series of unconnected public and private links that sit outside of the blog that i share with specifc people.
I have lots of pages on my john.philpin.com - and some point to Craft pages - and in all honesty is a mess!
Any help?