Every day we roll out a half dozen little improvements to Micro.blog, with big stuff thrown in when it’s ready. This week my favorite tiny change was making block quotes look better in the iOS/Mac timeline. Doesn’t seem like much, but 100s of these changes add up.
→ 2018/01/26 2:32 pmYesterday we sent Sunlit 2.0 to beta testers. The feedback has been great so far. We just pushed a new version with several important fixes, especially to publishing existing stories.
It’s a little overwhelming to ship a brand new app in the middle of everything going on with Micro.blog — opening the platform to new users, trying to stay on top of bugs and feature requests, and planning for the future. But it just feels right that Sunlit should be part of the Micro.blog suite.
We love photos and we love blogs. Sunlit combines those things in a way that accommodates more advanced features than can fit in the main Micro.blog app.
Micro.blog makes it as easy to write a quick short post as it is to send a tweet. The timeline and simple posting interface are part of that. Sunlit supports microblog posts while taking a different approach in the UI, focused around stories and longer blog posts, whether they’re hosted on Micro.blog or elsewhere on the web. And we can do it without much fanfare on the Micro.blog server side because the technical scope of the platform already supports it.
Just sent Sunlit to the beta group. Looking forward to hearing what people think. (Make sure to read the TestFlight release notes for a few gotchas with the beta.)
→ 2018/01/24 4:24 pm Thanks to @lyle and @BrianCordanYoung for having me on the GeekSpeak podcast! We talked about the problems with today’s social networks and what we’re trying to do with Micro.blog.
→ 2018/01/23 5:18 pmHere’s a short screencast demo of the upcoming version of Sunlit. We’ve rebuilt it for blogging and Micro.blog. You can create stories with photos and text to publish to your blog, with editing and filters, plus a new Discover section for browsing photos.
http://manton.org/images/2018/sunlit_2.0_demo.movIf you’d like to try the TestFlight beta, email help@micro.blog. You don’t need a Micro.blog account to use it — it also supports publishing to WordPress — but we think it makes a great companion to Micro.blog. Enjoy!
Waiting for the HomePod excitement to settle down a little this morning before posting about something new.
→ 2018/01/23 9:59 am Micro Monday: @Aleen. On her microblog she posts about everything from books and journals, to podcasting and technology, to her work with App Camp for Girls. Thanks for being part of the community, Aleen!
→ 2018/01/22 4:12 pm Rolled out a change to show replies on the web version of user profile pages. Should be more consistent across the web and apps now.
→ 2018/01/22 1:41 pm Apologies for the unexpected downtime early this morning. Still looking into what happened, but plan to add some more servers soon to minimize this. (Hosted blogs remained up.)
→ 2018/01/22 7:51 am Played HQ for the first time tonight. I was juggling something else when it started and my tap didn’t register on question 1, so I was eliminated immediately. Maybe this isn’t for me. 🙂
→ 2018/01/21 10:14 pmWe posted Core Intuition episode 313:
Daniel and Manton talk about digging oneself out of customer support debt, and strategies for improving the efficiency of support mechanisms. They react to Apple’s disabling of free In-App-Purchases, and speculate about whether it was intentional or not. This leads them into a re-evaluation about the risks of selling on the App Stores, and the lure of selling directly to customers.
And just for subscribers, Extra Intuition episode 4, with Daniel and I talking about cryptocurrency and my experience trying to cash out.
Posted a new version of Micro.blog for Mac with a few recent fixes. “Check for Updates” to get the latest.
→ 2018/01/19 4:57 pm Bummed to have to return my Nissan Leaf today, which I’ve been leasing for the last few years. Great little car. Going to go without an extra car for a little while, but the next one’s gotta be electric.
→ 2018/01/19 11:49 amColin Devroe interviewed me about Micro.blog:
Yesterday I volleyed back and forth via email with Manton Reece, the founder and creator of Micro.blog. Micro.blog is in that same relatively early stage where new features are released with regularity, where the community is growing steadily, and where the users have the strongest voice.
I’m happy with how the interview turned out. It’s one of the best summaries of what we’re trying to do with Micro.blog, all in one place. Hope you like it.
Not a good week for Micro.blog uptime. Most of the maintenance went smoothly (just a few minutes) but an unrelated problem had parts of the service down early this morning. Hosted blogs were not effected. We’ll do better in the future.
→ 2018/01/19 7:51 am Good write-up by @burk on the pros and cons of moving from WordPress to Micro.blog. Also love the design changes via CSS.
→ 2018/01/18 6:03 pm Fred Wilson, via @cdevroe:
→ 2018/01/18 11:28 amInternet Two is closed platforms that increasingly dominate the market and own and control our content and us. We need to get to Internet Three where we take back control of ourselves. It is high time for that to happen.
Responding to a post by Chris Adamson about iOS conferences, Marco Arment notes that podcasts and YouTube have partially replaced the need to sit in a room and listen to someone give a talk:
Podcasts are a vastly more time-efficient way for people to communicate ideas than writing conference talks, and people who prefer crafting their message as a produced piece or with multimedia can do the same thing (and more) on YouTube. Both are much easier and more versatile for people to consume than conference talks, and they can reach and benefit far more people.
It can’t be overstated how important it is to meet people face to face in our community. I forgot to mention this: I’ll be attending Peersconf in Austin this April. This’ll be a new conference experience for me and I’m looking forward to it.
I got an ink stamp made for my return address when sending out Micro.blog stickers. Just think it looks cool.
