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Micro.blog is a
microblogging Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the ...
and
social networking A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...
service created by Manton Reece. It is the first large multi-user
social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
service to support the Webmention and Micropub standards published by the
World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...
, and is part of the Fediverse, supporting ActivityPub.


History

Micro.blog has features similar to
Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
or
Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
, and provides for posting status updates, articles, photos, short podcasts, and video. Micro.blog also supports long-form blogging. It was launched on April 24, 2017, after a
Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...
campaign that reached its funding target within one day. The service was built using Jekyll, but later transitioned to Hugo. Users can post using hosted accounts or import RSS feeds from other self-hosted blogs to syndicate them into the network from other websites they run. Users can also import their posts from Twitter,
WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...
,
Tumblr Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...
, and the defunct microblogging service App.net. Some of the Kickstarter Campaign rewards involved access to a book on Indie Microblogging that Reece committed to writing. A full draft of this now exists (as of 2022-12-22) and is publicly available. The web hosting service DreamHost supported Micro.blog's Kickstarter campaign, and announced their intent to help customers create independent microblogs hosted at DreamHost that are compatible with Micro.blog.


Philosophy

Micro.blog encourages users to publish under their own domain as part of its support for the IndieWeb "POSSE" principles—Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. This publishing model involves the end user posting content to their own domain name based site first, then using web standards to syndicate to multiple other social networks and platforms. Micro.blog supports syndication to Facebook Pages, as well as to Twitter, Facebook, Medium, LinkedIn,
Mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...
, and
Tumblr Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...
accounts. It also supports importing from data exported from WordPress, and supports cross-posting from Instagram to micro.blog. Micro.blog eschews many of the common features of
Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
and other
microblogging Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the ...
platforms. For example, Micro.blog does not show follower counts, does not have hashtags, public likes or trending topics, does not have equivalents of retweeting or quote tweeting, does not algorithmically recommend users and like
Mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...
, and does not have full-text search as part of the service or client apps. Reece says in his book: "It mirrors a philosophy we have with Micro.blog to launch without follower counts or public likes." Unusually, for a social network, Micro.blog's first full time employee was a Community Manager, Jean Macdonald, who—among other things—produces a hand-curated "Discover" section on Micro.blog. Reece explains some of this in his book, saying: "I think more social networks should do things that don’t scale, prioritizing safety over profit. For example, in Micro.blog the featured posts in Discover are curated by humans instead of algorithms." He also writes:
Micro.blog doesn't make it particularly easy to discover new users, and posts don't spread virally. While some might view this as a weakness, and it does mean we grow more slowly than other social networks, this is by design. No retweets, no trending hashtags, no unlimited global search, and no algorithmic recommended users. Micro.blog limits search and avoids public likes and reposts so that the snowball starts small and stays small. Instead of going viral and becoming a major problem, fake accounts can be spotted early and shut down if necessary.


Client applications

* Wavelength * Sunlit 2.0 * Icro 1.0 * Gluon


See also

* IndieWeb *
Microblogging Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the ...


References


External links

* {{Online social networking Microblogging software Blog hosting services Internet properties established in 2017 Software that federates via ActivityPub