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Micro.blog

micro.blog

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Re: Micro.blog

#141

Post by qwerty456127 »

chrisaldrich wrote: post #130
qwerty456127 wrote: post #65

I actually find it a problem (for myself at least but there probably are many people who feel the same) that we only seem to have Medium-like big-article blogging and Twitter-like SMS-y single-sentence microblogging platforms. I really want a hybrid, something in between, something for short posts but without twitterish post length limits, with markdown and media embedding support, letting you to edit your posts when…

Micro.blog is exactly just this sort of hybrid solution. If you start typing a short status update you can publish it as such. Once you go past the 280ish character limit, micro.blog gives you a new field to give the post a title (if you want). I use my personal website running WordPress a lot like this hybrid model as well. I can do all the things you mentioned and have separate feeds for all of the related post typ…

Cool! I'll take a look! Given the screenshot I thought it's just yet another Twitter.

Re: Micro.blog

#142

Post by bthooper »

mixedmath wrote: post #99
mixedmath wrote: post #98

I was very pleased to see how easy and quickly I could set up an account and attach the feed from my actual site. (I note that this is all free, which is nice). I find the $5 fee for someone to set up their own site to be perhaps reasonable on the face of it, but I fear that this won't work. I think those who care about decentralization and the decline of walled gardens are also technologically literate enough to kno…

If microblog people are reading this, I have a few other comments. I'd like to emphasize that it's a very clean UI and experience. 1. I wish it were more obvious that I could check out a variety of microblogs at micro.blog/discover --- giving essentially a twitter feed. I somehow missed this entirely on my first go-through, initial setup, and checking of the site. 2. I associated the RSS feed to my own site to microb…

Regarding point 3 - I've wondered if there is a bit of a delay because micro.blog content can be hosted in a variety of places - a Wordpress blog, a static site, a GitHub page, or micro.blog itself. I think it is relying on webmentions to circulate through the internet to create these conversations. I agree with you concern, but I suspect it is more of a technical challenge because of the way hosting can be de-centralized. @hooper

Re: Micro.blog

#144

Post by Boulth »

deyan wrote: post #22

Lots 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…

> 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.

I've emailed the author of micro.blog once over some small technical issue with their bot and they were very responsive solving the issue within days. That's one of the best support experiences I've ever had. Usually big companies ignore or consider user reported problems as a non-issue.

Re: Micro.blog

#145

Post by LaGrange »

int_19h wrote: post #138
LaGrange wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did it? Yes. People such as Alexandra Erin or Flavia Dzodan regularly provide well-informed, structured and readable threads, to say nothing of all the scientists active on Twitter. Shitposting accounts are only a part, large but rather boring, of the wider Twitter ecosystem. > I feel like it rather encouraged going for the shortest available arguments. Which tend to be the ones low on data, This is presumptuous. T…

> Yes. People such as Alexandra Erin or Flavia Dzodan regularly provide well-informed, structured and readable threads, to say nothing of all the scientists active on Twitter. Your claim that I disputed was that Twitter encourages such content. I'm not saying that it doesn't have any good stuff - but you need to compare it to other, more verbose mediums to make a claim that the brevity that Twitter rules impose actua…

The, in my opinion false, assumption you seem to be making the entire time, is that the encouragement is consistent for both forms — that it works the same for all people, both content creators and consumers. But there's plenty of people who excel at expression on either long or short form forms.

So I am _not_ claiming that articles or Usenet posts were universally bad — but a claim that they are somehow "better" than Twitter would be just as false. Especially in the case of Usenet. I mean, I don't know how rosy glasses you're wearing, but I do remember what it was like, and while not exactly 4Chan, it was often getting there.

Re: Micro.blog

#146

Post by Zanni »

detaro wrote: post #61
prepend wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a neat idea and seems to be what blogger was way back in the day. $5/month is completely unreasonable as a github pages account is free and Dropbox/OneDrive is $8/month. This would be a really neat oss project. And I’m sure some people will find this useful, but seems like not the solution to social media problems. The only way I would think this is good is if it donates $4.95/month to some sort of simpl…

On the other hand, $5 is relatively cheap compared to other paid hosting platforms, so clearly people are willing to pay for additional comfort over Github Pages. I seriously don't get how people don't seem to understand that (and I say that as someone who self-hosts a lot of stuff, and thus personally isn't interested paying for a blog, but know plenty people who do).

$5/mo seems high to me, but that's irrelevant. I'd happily pay it, if this could be a replacement for Facebook. But it can't, because $5/mo would be insanely high to most of my friends, many of whom decide what their plans are for the evening by how much gas is in their tank, i.e. can they afford to drive to town? And if my friends aren't there, it's not really a social network. I love this idea, but it needs a free tier to scale, and it needs a "pro" tier that's around $10-$20/year.

EDIT: Okay, apparently there is a free tier, but it isn't really viable. No way to post (without an existing, external blog) and no profile page.

Re: Micro.blog

#147

Post by prepend »

stedaniels wrote: post #38
prepend wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a neat idea and seems to be what blogger was way back in the day. $5/month is completely unreasonable as a github pages account is free and Dropbox/OneDrive is $8/month. This would be a really neat oss project. And I’m sure some people will find this useful, but seems like not the solution to social media problems. The only way I would think this is good is if it donates $4.95/month to some sort of simpl…

You reckon you could build and run this as a service for $0.05 a user per month? Whilst perhaps scraping profit? Care to share some of your own products, I'm keen to see how sustainable your business models are.

I don’t sell product like this. I do use WordPress for free on a shared host averaging about $1/site.

My problem is not making money by selling this type of service. My problem is finding a good tool.

It’s interesting that people think users care about provider profit models. What’s an acceptable profit? I certainly don’t know and don’t really care.

Re: Micro.blog

#148

Post by prepend »

jen729w wrote: post #49
prepend wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a neat idea and seems to be what blogger was way back in the day. $5/month is completely unreasonable as a github pages account is free and Dropbox/OneDrive is $8/month. This would be a really neat oss project. And I’m sure some people will find this useful, but seems like not the solution to social media problems. The only way I would think this is good is if it donates $4.95/month to some sort of simpl…

OSS project! Because software is libre free, hosting is ~ beer free and a dev’s time is worth ... ah. Fuck all. Right. As someone who is teaching himself to code so that he might one day make a thing on the internet that he – shock!, might want to sell, in order to make a living – this saddens me.

Think of it as volunteer work. Lots of people like coding and volunteer their time. Lots of people don’t do this.

This doesn’t mean time isn’t valuable, it just means that people donate their valuable time. And competing with that is a bad idea.

I have a friend who does pro bono legal work. Normal bill rate is hundreds per hour, but donated for free to people who can’t afford it. Been doing it for years.

Now imagine that I start a new legal aide company and only charge $5/month for it. It’s pretty silly to complain about these volunteers. It’s also silly to think that it’s not worth being a lawyer because of these volunteers.

Keep studying, become a good programmer. You’ll have work. Some of your ideas might not sustain you economically. But if you get a good enough job, you can help the world with a cool side project

Re: Micro.blog

#149

Post by prepend »

arnvald wrote: post #51
prepend wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a neat idea and seems to be what blogger was way back in the day. $5/month is completely unreasonable as a github pages account is free and Dropbox/OneDrive is $8/month. This would be a really neat oss project. And I’m sure some people will find this useful, but seems like not the solution to social media problems. The only way I would think this is good is if it donates $4.95/month to some sort of simpl…

Please stop criticising people for charging money for their work. You don't do that to a doctor you visit, you don't do that to a taxi driver, why do you do that to a fellow programmer?

I’m not criticizing OP per se, just pointing out that I don’t think it’s that valuable.

If my doctor said ve wanted to change my $10 visit to $100, I would certainly not use that. That’s not a criticism of the doctor.

Time costs money and that’s a reality. People want to make money off their business, that makes sense. But saying there’s a floor value to anything just because a human makes it is a bit odd. If OP hires a second person, does that mean we shouldn’t criticize the price doubling?

As a user, I don’t care much for expenses above a base level of ethical practices and sustainability. I’ve not used lots of products because I didn’t find them viable because of their price vs cost. But I’m sometimes wrong.

Re: Micro.blog

#150

Post by prepend »

detaro wrote: post #61
prepend wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a neat idea and seems to be what blogger was way back in the day. $5/month is completely unreasonable as a github pages account is free and Dropbox/OneDrive is $8/month. This would be a really neat oss project. And I’m sure some people will find this useful, but seems like not the solution to social media problems. The only way I would think this is good is if it donates $4.95/month to some sort of simpl…

On the other hand, $5 is relatively cheap compared to other paid hosting platforms, so clearly people are willing to pay for additional comfort over Github Pages. I seriously don't get how people don't seem to understand that (and I say that as someone who self-hosts a lot of stuff, and thus personally isn't interested paying for a blog, but know plenty people who do).

It’s all relative. I pay $30/year for a shared hosting service. It runs a ton of different sites and software (anything supported by cpanel basically).

So doubling that price for just blogging is out for me. But it’s cool if you, and others like it and are willing to pay. I wish OP best of luck.

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