Still cold in Austin, and presumably everywhere. We burned through most of our firewood the last couple days, but thankful for no power outages or other problems in our area. 🎄 | Continue reading
Mastodon client Mammoth also running their own server to make sign-up less confusing. Smart idea that I wonder if others will copy. | Continue reading
For the last Core Int of the year, @danielpunkass and I talk about blogging! The latest with Twitter, Matt Mullenweg, Mastodon, Micro.blog, and why blogging is the eternal tech of the web that will always come back in style. | Continue reading
The Android version of Epilogue has been lagging behind iOS, so I dusted it off this week and started a new open beta on Google Play. Still have a few tweaks to make and then will ship both Android and iOS after the holidays. | Continue reading
In 2023, I plan to advocate more for client apps to embrace the larger IndieWeb and fediverse. Mastodon going mainstream is a great step forward, but we don’t want a monoculture. A key IndieWeb principle is plurality: multiple apps with different codebases that can interoperate. | Continue reading
Sad but understandable that the Trail of Lights was cancelled tonight. We had tickets for tonight because we were slow getting ourselves organized. Everything is a little mixed up this year, trying to find time for old and new traditions. 🎄 | Continue reading
Pushed another update to the beta Micro.blog iOS app (TestFlight link). Still planning to ship early-ish next year, but I use it as my default now. If it’s missing anything you need, just re-install the official release from the App Store. | Continue reading
Adding this to the travel list: Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, covered in the New York Times today. The world’s largest model railway. Looks amazing. | Continue reading
The year isn’t quite over yet, but the book I just started reading is going to take more than the next week to finish, so I think the books I read for 2022 is pretty much wrapped up.During the pandemic I started to read much more than ever before. In 2021, I read 33 books, and th … | Continue reading
We’ve written a help article about the differences between Micro.blog and Mastodon. Hope it helps clarify a few things! I love our support for ActivityPub, but we’re trying to do something different too and don’t want to lose that. | Continue reading
We’re starting to plan Micro Camp 2023! Jean just posted the dates. 🏕️ | Continue reading
No question Elon has gone way beyond our worst predictions for Twitter, but his “decisions by tweet” have added to the narrative that the company is chaotic and off course. Imagine App Store policies the same but Tim Cook firing off random edicts about side-loading or linking. | Continue reading
I agree with @benwerd to stop giving Twitter attention, but as the Micro.blog founder it’s kind of my job to comment. I’ve been wondering why Twitter anti-competitive behavior in 2012 didn’t resonate like 2022. People now have a single, impulsive leader to blame for everything. | Continue reading
Thinking of folks bailing on Twitter, I spent a little time clicking through old tweets from when I signed off in 2012. What I got wrong was jumping to another silo. Later went all-in on my blog, building Micro.blog, and embracing the IndieWeb. Those are the things that last. | Continue reading
We re-watched all the Harry Potter movies over the last week or so. Thinking about putting a books re-read on my list for next year… Haven’t read Deathly Hallows since it’s release. 📚 | Continue reading
Twitter blocking links to Mastodon and other networks reminds me of when (10 years ago!) they also shut down Instagram’s “find friends on Twitter” feature. But you know what you can always link to in your profile? Your blog. | Continue reading
Finished reading: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. I love fantasy books and I love coffee shops, so how can I not love this? Fun story. 📚 | Continue reading
For years I’ve assumed Twitter won’t last forever, but Elon has really accelerated that timeline. Still stunning. | Continue reading
We just published episode 541 of Core Intuition. Talking about marketing for Micro.blog, influencers, the holidays, and an update on MarsEdit 5. | Continue reading
I haven’t been able to pin down exactly what I don’t like about AI-generated text and art, but I always got the sense that something wasn’t right about it. I like this post from Lois van Baarle, writing about artists protesting AI: Many have compared image generators to human art … | Continue reading
Good post from @dave about how blog posts without titles should be handled by feed readers. It seems so simple but doing this the right way is actually a big part of moving beyond Twitter. | Continue reading
I’m updating book.micro.blog with Elon’s impact on Twitter. Giving myself until the end of the year, then calling it done. For real this time. There will always be something new, but this is a good place to wrap it up. | Continue reading
Looks like mastodon.technology is officially no more. As part of the shutdown, the instance was sending thousands of ActivityPub “delete” messages, which I’m still not sure is correct if there’s no intent to delete an account. What if a closing instance has a million users? Hmm. | Continue reading
Does anyone at this coffee shop not have COVID? Maybe I’m stuck in the pandemic mindset, but if you’re coughing and blowing your nose repeatedly in public, stay home please. Sitting outside now. 🙂 | Continue reading
I could write about rumored third-party iOS app stores but it would repeat what I’ve blogged about with sideloading for years. What’s new: many sideloading skeptics now support it. It is inevitable because it’s the only permanent fix to the exclusive distribution/payment problem. | Continue reading
Jack Dorsey wrote an interesting post (not a Twitter thread!) about a potential future for social media. I disagree with much of it, but I respect that he’s being thoughtful and self-critical. | Continue reading
Another clever Micro.blog plug-in from @sod called Bookmarks Shortcode. I’m trying this out now and it works well. I hadn’t thought about sharing my bookmarks publicly before, but I like the option. | Continue reading
Walked to the coffee shop despite likely rain today. Can’t find an umbrella. I bought one in Portland last month but then remembered that no one uses umbrellas in Portland. Accidentally left it in the rental van. ☔️ | Continue reading
“Everything that we make, we try to make the web a better place.” — Matt Mullenweg in an interview on Decoder | Continue reading
Lately my job seems to be about making sure Mastodon doesn’t turn into a denial-of-service attack on my servers. 🙂 Sorry for the flakiness today, partially caused by how we were handling a flood of messages from Mastodon.technology’s impeding shutdown. Fixed the issue. | Continue reading
I made a video to show how Micro.blog and Mastodon work together. Hopefully this helps, but admittedly it’s all still pretty confusing, and I think we could explain it better. You can watch it on YouTube here. | Continue reading
Tested cross-posting from Micro.blog backwards and forwards today with test accounts. Photos, no photos, alt text, Twitter, Mastodon. Always works, so puzzled why it can be flaky for some people. Next up: more logging and upload retries. | Continue reading
Doing some database housekeeping this morning. One of our tables to keep track of Mastodon activities had grown out of control, introducing a little downtime last night. Should be running much better now. | Continue reading
I’ve been trying to walk up to the coffee shop every other day. Mostly quiet out as I headed back home, sky reflecting on the lake but no rain yet. | Continue reading
This bit from our news blog is probably worth highlighting here too. We’ve improved cross-posting in Micro.blog, now preserving alt text when sending photos to Twitter. Required a trip down the OAuth rabbit hole for a new endpoint and updating old code. | Continue reading
Still confused about the game Elon is playing with the so-called Twitter Files. I’m not seeing any obvious unethical behavior from the old team at Twitter. Just looks like Elon is trying to burn every bridge he crossed over to become CEO, including I expect with Jack Dorsey. | Continue reading
This week’s Core Intuition is up with discussion of the MarsEdit 5 release and ChatGPT. We go long on this one, about an hour, possibly because I can’t stop rambling incoherently about AI. | Continue reading
Finished reading: Babel by R. F. Kuang. Fantasy but only just barely, it’s really an alternative history about language, race, class, friendship. Brilliant. 📚 | Continue reading
Just typed “blogged down” instead of “bogged down” in a message. Blogs on the brain, always. 🧠 | Continue reading
Micro.blog has always tried to put all the important URLs for your blog at your own domain name if you have one, including URLs for photos you post to your blog. I like this because it’s consistent with prioritizing content ownership, and makes migrating photos to another blog ho … | Continue reading
Brittney Griner finally released. Paul Whelan still held. It’s not exactly a fair prisoner exchange, but at least Brittney is out. 🏀 | Continue reading
MarsEdit 5 is out! Features new Markdown highlighting and quick micropost window. Works great with Micro.blog. Congrats @danielpunkass! | Continue reading
Feeling pretty chill about the Georgia election. Watching the results with the least stress compared to any election in years. It’s going to be fine. 🇺🇸 | Continue reading
Pushed out a new iOS beta of Micro.blog 3.0 with user search in Discover. Reminder for new folks joining the early TestFlight, still some missing features that we’ll put together before it ships next year. testflight.apple.com/join/lWxM… | Continue reading
Got a new feature ready to ship but gonna hold it until tomorrow morning. All the pieces are deployed, tested, just hidden in the UI, and always seems like a mistake to launch things late in the day. | Continue reading
I’ve renamed and expanded the help page about how Micro.blog works with Mastodon. Includes more answers to common questions. | Continue reading
ChatGPT is a video game. That’s okay, I like video games too! But I’m not going to get distracted into thinking it’s a productive use of work time. I’m enjoying the screenshots folks share and otherwise ignoring it. (Maybe I’ll regret this stance when the robots come for me…) | Continue reading
Weird dreams last night… I met with Elon Musk and we talked about curation, small developer teams, and how Micro.blog could carve out a nice market niche away from the Twitter chaos. And for some reason my iPhone clock kept mixing up AM and PM. Maybe a sign I need a break. | Continue reading