Why not just run GNU Social and set your maximum character count nice and high?
Micro.blog
21–30 of 153 posts
Re: Micro.blog
#22Lots of negativity here, as is unfortunately typical at HN far too often these days. Especially given that this project is what HN is supposed to be about - done by a lone hacker with help from volunteers, trying to create a different and hopefully better social media. Sure, it may or may not work, it has all sorts of pros and cons, but I’d vote for being open-minded and constructive rather than cynical from the get go.
For what it’s worth, I played with it literally a couple of days ago. I found the set up very easy, the themes limited but decent, the functionality around creating posts and pages very fast and clean. It also has cross-posting to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Medium built-in. I also found that $5/mo is perfectly acceptable - many blogs charge more. I absolutely loved that you could enable a GitHub Pages integration, de facto backing up your website for free.
On the con side, there are things you can’t customize (eg their default footer that says to follow the user, or their archive page), search is only present in some themes and also can’t be customized, and there is very limited information about the project overall. The lack of ability to add an option for email subscription also is a significant issue in my opinion.
I was investigating the project from a blogging point of view and concluded it is trying to be Twitter first and foremost so not a good fit. Still, it was a pleasure to discover something new, interesting, and reasonably clean and functional.
Re: Micro.blog
#23> Today's social networks are broken. Hate and harassment are too common. Fake news spreads unchecked. How will micro.blog be different? Apps start small and friendly, but if you invite everyone in you'll have the same issues unless you have a technology or policy strategy that differs from the current social networks. Would love to see this succeed, but need more details before I buy in.
It's just wank, clearly. They say that thing they think that some subdemographic of Twitter refugees want to hear, in the hope that it will resonate.
Ultimately promises that you'll be protected from being offended by communications of the broad public, when the whole purpose of the site is ostensibly to communicate with the broad public, are empty. If you want to publish, you will receive criticism, both fair and unfair, good faith and bad; but since people keep trying to sell the idea that it can be "safe" to publish opinions, people continue to be let down when they find that untrue.
Re: Micro.blog
#24FYI: After you set up a profile it lets you customize your footer with arbitrary HTML/CSS/JS. It's definitely not secure. See: http://xss.micro.blog
They should be more fussy with the subdomains they let go. E.g https://support.micro.blog
Re: Micro.blog
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's very little information on the site at all, about any aspects of the service, and yet they want you to pay to use it. Nothing about how it works, who runs it, privacy policy, where the data is stored... nothing.
How much does it cost?
$5 per month.
Re: Micro.blog
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
:(
You can do that on any blog! E.g. blogger.com
I was about to say the same thing.
Think of the username.micro.blog pages as your personal home page, like a Wordpress or Squarespace blog site. They're a hosting option for people who aren't tech-savvy enough to setup an RSS feed / 280-char micro-post RSS feed on their own site, or just don't want the hassle of maintaining that setup.
I believe others have tried posting similar XSS into a Micro.Blog post, and it gets filtered out in the timeline feed that followers read, whether on the site or via 3rd party clients. (Now if someone proves that wrong, that would be a big deal.)
Re: Micro.blog
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's very little information on the site at all, about any aspects of the service, and yet they want you to pay to use it. Nothing about how it works, who runs it, privacy policy, where the data is stored... nothing.
How much does it cost?
It's free if you just want to reserve a username and add an RSS feed from your own website - which can be either full articles (which will appear in Micro.Blog as a title & link), or short 280 char posts. You can reply to posts with a free account too.
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EDIT: Probably easier if for the other plans I just post the site's own info:
New Microblog — $5/month
We'll create and host a microblog for you at username.micro.blog or your own domain name. Includes cross-posting, pages, themes, and publishing from the web, iOS, and Mac.
New Blog + Microcast — $10/month
All the features of a hosted microblog plus audio hosting. Upload MP3s via the web or use the companion iPhone app Wavelength to record and edit your own microcast. We'll create a podcast feed for your site.
Enable Cross-posting — $2/month
Already have your own microblog? Add Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, and Facebook cross-posting via Micro.blog. Works with any RSS feed.
Give Micro.blog
Invite someone to Micro.blog or pay for their first year of blog hosting.
Re: Micro.blog
#28I dont understand this.
>Short posts like tweets but on your own web site that you control.
Is it not like having your own website, does micro blog link all websites and display the contents on their website?
>Today's social networks are broken. Ads are everywhere. Hate and harassment are too common. Fake news spreads unchecked.
Micro blog doesn't seem to be solving this problem
Re: Micro.blog
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
On fee front, using Micro.blog is free if you host your own site. As the help document mentions ( http://help.micro.blog/2018/pricing/ ), you can add your feeds from your external blogs and only use social aspect of Micro.blog. I guess, though not right on front there, the ToS ( http://help.micro.blog/2018/tos/ ) and Privacy policies ( http://help.micro.blog/2018/privacy-policy/ ) are clearly drafted.
The ToS and Privacy Policies links you posted are nowhere to be seen on the front page, registration page, or indeed any page that is clickable on visiting the link. Where's the about page? Whois just has tucows REDACTED FOR PRIVACY. Could you also link to an About page via HN instead of clearly posting on your own website?
> Whois just has tucows REDACTED FOR PRIVACY.
That's the same for every domain right now. You can thank the GDPR for that, it wiped out Whois globally and doesn't provide an option for you to say "actually I do want my details published in Whois". ICANN is currently suing Tucows about it:
https://www.tucows.com/blog/2018/05/28/tucows-statement-on-i...