I crumble a little inside when I see people mention cross-posting services that copy posts to Bluesky and Mastodon with a monthly subscription that is more than the cost of Micro.blog. But that’s all they do! Or you could use Micro.blog and get the same thing and a full-featured hosted blog. 🤪
@manton I’ve been playing with micro.blog. I like it and think it’s a cool service! But as a cross-posting service one thing I think that’s lacking is that it doesn’t include attached media in the BlueSky/Mastodon post itself but instead in the linked post.
bsky.app/profile/jeff...
@manton It does copy photos, but not videos yet. Bluesky didn't support video when we built this, but now that it does I'll be adding support for it.
@manton You know why I don't use Micro.blog's native cross-posting features. So maybe there are more people like me.
@manton I don't understand it either. I am consistently contributing to disseminating that information. Did it again earlier today. 👇 vladcampos.com/2024/11/17/i...
@manton Sir, I bought a new domain, tried to change the setting to reflect my new domain with my Bluesky handle, but biked the whole blog somehow. I emailed for support already 😂🫠
@manton I always want to reply “check out Micro.blog instead” but I’m never sure if they would appreciate being told to use something else.
@manton I’ve had trouble signing into my account. Is it a 2FA issue? I get a code emailed to me from bluesky after trying to log in but there’s no place to put it and micro.blog shows an error. Thoughts?
@jade Yeah, I think most people probably wouldn't appreciate being told what to use unless they are actively asking for suggestions. Sometimes a blurry line between being helpful and annoying. 🙂
@tim.bueno.social Yes, for two-factor auth make sure you generate an app-specific password in Bluesky to use in Micro.blog. I need to document this somewhere.
@tim.bueno.social Yes, for two-factor auth make sure you generate an app-specific password in Bluesky to use in Micro.blog. I need to document this somewhere.
@manton What I like most about this type of service like micro.blog is that they’re like private social media.
I hope it will be important direction in the future with increasing popularity.
@manton I think you're basically faced with two problems.
I think not doing 2 has consistently lost some of the MB customer base and is why you fail to capture a broader audience as a crossposting machine. But Micro.blog is not purely that, so it's probably ok, provided you're willing to compete on its other strengths.
@manton It's been working great for me! I've mentioned Micro.blog to a couple of people for this. The only bug I've seen are images not showing up on Bluesky.
@jsonbecker Those are really good points that I forget sometimes, because I have no use for anything that doesn't post to my blog too. A cross-posting machine is simpler but not the product I want to build. The marketing we do for this should reflect that somehow.
@collin Thanks! Photos should be working, so let me know if there continues to be a problem. One limitation is it assumes photos are in short posts, not full-length posts with titles. Titled posts are handled differently.
@jsonbecker If nothing, it at least shows that people are willing to pay extra for more control. Echofeed is $20/yr, and I can use category feeds to select which posts to crosspost.
Also, I would rather not have a linkback to my blog. Bluesky allows only 300 characters, but Threads and Mastodon allow 500. Now, Echofeed truncates the post instead of linking back in case I accidentally crosspost a 300+ character post.
But yup, I would rather have the native crossposting, but I also import Letterboxd and StatusLog (sports live-posting) to Micro.blog, which I don't want to push to other networks.
But yeah, I understand this is @manton's decision on how he wants Micro.blog to function, but then he can't be surprised when others fill in the gaps to meet the demand that he is not willing to provide.
@pratik yup, I get it. The only one that I think is a bit odd and therefore truly unlikely is lack of link back, but that's because I still don't quite understand your version of pseudonymity-- that would surely be a reason to not have your blog be your crossposting engine though.
I think it's fairly likely to have new posts have a selection for where to syndicate always visible one day-- Manton here's that feedback way too often, and unlike some other forms of "be more like social", this one gets very few people who actually object.
Category stuff also seems like it should happen, but I think that Micro.blog's architecture around building category feeds is just fiddly enough that I can see ways and reasons why it might not come without a major rework.
It'll be interesting if Manton open sources Micro.blog core, which he's suggested could happen at some point. I'm not really a Rails/Ruby person, but I could see myself futzing with some things because I can't help myself.
@jsonbecker Re: #1, I still follow a blogger I've followed for the past 15 years. She has a blog for long-form posts (was on Micro.blog for a short time but left) but is also very prolific on Mastodon and often does long threads instead of long posts on her blog. She has 7.5K followers. Recently, I asked her if she was concerned that most of her content was not on her blog. She laughed, shrugged it off, and said she may build an RSS bridge as a backup but is not overly concerned. Maybe that's an attitude that most of us who are obsessed with POSSE don't relate to.
@pratik I think Croissant is more of a competitor than Echofeed, which I think has some things going for it but is much much more like Micro.blog and unlikely to be all that attractive to someone who is willing to pay for a blog host.
Echofeed, I think, largely will outcompete Micro.blog for people who would never be willing to host their blog here. If you had any interest in hosting here, I think the number of folks who would want or need Echofeed over Micro.blog's features is small and probably not worth stressing over.
It's the folks who would use something like Croissant as a casual user (and not someone who needs Buffer-style posting) who Manton should be after-- just like Croissant, but you don't need to worry about "backing up" your content archive some day because we save it every time you post for you-- right here on your own website you control that can even be at your own domain.
@pratik I don't really think that matters much to MB or should. It's market is someone who wants a blog or cares about having a blog, at least partially. If someone has that ability and that option and decides they don't care, this is 100% not for them and I think trying to cater to that audience would absolutely be out of scope for MB and just a different product altogether that does exist. If MB's goal was to have the largest possible customer base, that may matter, but it's not trying to have 10,000,000 users as its primary goal.
@manton What could it be that makes people think micro.blog is just for microblogging?
(Sorry to keep banging this drum.)
@manton All of my ideas can be summed up with: employ somebody who knows how to work on messaging, perception, etc. Wish I knew good workarounds for between now and whenever that is possible. 😬
FWIW a big hit with Leo in that video was the Reply box. This was one of the reasons I was excited by the reveal during Micro Camp; certain features can hit that sweet spot of "impressive" and "easy to explain by showing", and those features are prominent in effective marketing.
Even in that second paragraph, I'm being a little vague. A lot of marketing and such for MB is basically guess-work even for core users because, to be frank, a lot of important aspects aren't clear — and probably shouldn't ever be public, I think, maybe, sort-of, depending on how you seem to want to run things. Only people who work with you closely, and have the relevant discussions to understand where you want things to go can actually create solutions to these problems.
@pratik @jsonbecker That’s fine but I don’t think developers are building these tools because of limitations in Micro.blog. Echofeed is a unique case. Most of these tools are not based on feeds at all.
@jsonbecker Well, if things had gone differently on Nov.5th, I would have been comfortable relaxing my linkback concern. But now, absolutely not. Since I'm in control of my mb blog, I've locked it down, so unless you know it exists or really want to dig it up, you can't. On Threads, I've many IRL friends and family following me (coz of the Instagram connection), and on Bluesky, I'm using a pseudonym.
I'm I'm trying to resist the chilling effect on my writing on my blog, so the friction at the time of posting perhaps is the only thing keeping me semi-private. Once I'm eligible for my U.S. citizenship in 1.75 years, I may rethink.
This may be a very specific and minority-based need, so I don't expect either for Micro.blog to budge. It's like software features that the majority of the users never think about how it may be dangerous for the minority. But I don't have the technical chops yet to fiddle with my custom solution.
@pratik for a moment I thought you meant me lol. Pretty much 95% of posts here including long form won’t make it to my blog. In fact I want my blog not to be part of my micro blog experience. I have thought about moving my blog to micro but without privacy controls on who gets to see my blog posts it’s absolutely not worth it for me. It’s not that my blog isn’t public but even there too I have locked posts. Plus I don’t want to deal with categories and like. @jsonbecker
@pratik well mostly I just feel that your fears are completely valid, and, as a result, I’d personally be posting under a pseudonym and on a pseudonymous domain if I shared them. It feels really hard to accomplish what you want and maintain that firewall with so many ways to slip once your name is attached. That’s all— I totally get your reasons and don’t deny them or feel they’re invalid, I just feel like they’re pretty tough to maintain along with real-name posting.
@jsonbecker And I agree re: matters much to Micro.blog. It's an excellent blogging platform at a bargain price with just enough flexibility to customize. It's not a social platform. It may seem like it is, but it also tries hard not to be. All of this is fine coz I don't think Manton wants it to scale more than 10K active users.
@jsonbecker Yup, I get that. Maybe I shouldn't have used my real name because crossposting wasn't an option when I opened my MB account in 2017. In fact, I used a pseudonym for the first two weeks. But even with a pseudonym, I drop too many personal details on my blog.
@manton honestly, when I saw Croissant, I think you may have missed a trick (but it’s never too late). I would heavily lean into the cross posting ability and then the blogging as cherry on top (I know it goes against you, but pivoting sometimes is a good thing).
@manton Thanks! Is Threads cross-posting down? I've successfully linked my account, but my recent post was only posted to Mastodon and Bluesky...
It's a great service using open technologies and you can't beat the community and support.
@kaa Thanks. That's too much of a pivot, though. The goal is to get more people to blog, so it has to be the main thing. Everything else is in support of that.
@manton Doesn't seem to be showing up. Here's the post on Micro.blog and Bluesky. collin.micro.blog/2024/11/1... bsky.app/profile/c...
@collin Oh weird. I noticed the feed URL on the Sources page is actually wrong for your account. It must be something related to that, I’ll check. The path should be /feed.json if you want to remove and add it back.
@manton But what if they don't want a blog? Is it possible to post on social media without it appearing on the open web, where there's no control on who can see it?
@renevanbelzen It's not a good fit for that. The goal is more blogs, so it's not the right product for private posts on social media.
@collin I've updated your feed URL, so ignore what I said about re-adding it. Hopefully that fixes it.
@tim.bueno.social I'm not aware of any Threads problems, although one user did report a delay of a few minutes. Lemme know if it's still not working! If there are authorization issues with Threads, it should report that, but you can also check Account → View logs.
@tim.bueno.social I'm not aware of any Threads problems, although one user did report a delay of a few minutes. Lemme know if it's still not working! If there are authorization issues with Threads, it should report that, but you can also check Account → View logs.
@manton I noticed the Mac app is no longer showing me post times relative to my time zone? It seems to be set to AST currently. Or, perhaps it always was and I'm just not observant!?
@manton I woke up this morning to see that they indeed went through, albeit 3 hours after I initially posted them. I’m chalking it up to a hiccup with Threads and not micro.blog at this point.
Thanks for the response!
@cdevroe If you’ve changed time zones recently, try loading the web version. It should detect and update everywhere.
@pratik Very interesting, I may have to give Echofeed a look, I like your comment about it not linking back when you cross various threshholds.
@manton wasn’t there a thread about this a couple o’ months ago even recall some suggestions for you? Including maybe losing the term ‘blog’ on certain promotional aspects of the services you provide.
@manton if the goal is to get more people to blog how about a free starter tier that's just that, a blog? Anything else on top is paid for, as it is now? It seems like plenty are already willing to pay for cross-posting elsewhere, so why not here, too?
Btw, I'm perfectly happy with everything as it is (fwiw), and thanks for doing all of it!
@davidmarsden The problem with free is that too many spammers use it, creating a lot of extra work for us. We're going to experiment with a very low-cost plan. I'll have more to share about this soon.
