Micro Monday

This week’s episode features a chat with Ridwan. He’s an engineer who likes reading and writing. He had just started a newsletter when Micro.blog announced a new newsletter subscriptions for Premium members. Ridwan has upgraded, and is now considering what he will do for a podcast, which is another of the additional features offered in the Premium plan.

Manton Reece returns to the Micro Monday podcast to talk about two new features that were recently announced: scheduling posts and email newsletter subscriptions. We also talk about something fun coming in 2022 at the end of the episode. 😇

This weeks guest is Art, an Irish writer with some ambivalent feelings toward technology. He publishes “Talk about books,” a newsletter on Substack.

Tot by Iconfactory

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), poet

This week’s guest is Pete, developer of the Tufte theme for Micro.blog, organizer (with @cheri) of the Micro.blog writers’ meetup, and a fan of pens, ink, and paper.

On this episode, Chad talks about how he came to Micro.blog (a Kickstarter backer!), how he became a sketchnoter, and why he likes the Racket platform for audio sharing. Check out Chad’s Micro Camp presentation (together with Chris), Getting Started With Sketchnoting and learn how to create your own sketchnote selfie. 😄

Watch the 2021 Micro Camp presentations on YouTube

Racket: Collaborate on anything

Jean’s Sketchnote Selfie from Micro Camp:

On this week’s episode, Jatan talks about how he became interested in space exploration in school, why the Moon is much more than a big rock in the sky, and how he has made Micro.blog his internet base station.

On this episode, Laurence Warner joined us for a chat shortly before his debut double album Smalltown Dreamer was released under his stage name Cerulean. We talked about using Micro.blog as a creator and performer, how Micro.blog could attract more folks from the performing arts, and the fun of meeting up with another microblogger (Jas) in person.

PS. Laurence will be a presenter at Micro Camp, coming this Friday! Sign up to receive an invite to this free two-day gathering and community celebration.

We’re back with Micro Monday podcasts! This week, Jas talks about how he became a “slowpreneur,” what he likes about Micro.blog, and how we can encourage more people to join our community.

A special episode to mark a milestone for the Micro Monday podcast. Manton and Jean talk with Patrick Rhone, who previously appeared on Episode 4. We take a look at how Micro.blog has evolved and where it’s going, focusing on these questions:

• How important are independent blogs, considering what we have seen elsewhere in social media?
• How has Micro.blog and the community evolved?
• How could Micro.blog be improved?

Our pets share opinions too.

This week’s guest is Rom. According to his bio on Micro.blog, he is “geek to the max.” He is also an avid photographer, and especially enjoys sharing food photos. He shares a lot of photos on Flickr, and we talk a bit about how online communities evolve. Finally, we talk about a local delicacy, the purple yam, which can be used in many tasty dishes and condiments.

Purple yam cheesecake, part of Rom’s Flickr photostream

This week’s guest Jess shares her wide variety of interests, including linguistics, the indie web, a revealing Harry Potter sorting quiz, and her tabby cat Gidget.

Mandaris Moore, aka Manny, is this week’s guest. We talk about his journey from AIM to MySpace to Twitter before he landed on Micro.blog, a place that makes him happy. Check out his series of Swift Slowly posts, where he shares his journey of learning, and his photos of Lillie the adorable pandemic rescue dog.

This week’s guest, Nell is a literacy tutor based in New England, who enjoys exploring new worlds via books, blogs, and virtual realities. We share our favorite reads in science fiction and mysteries, as we acknowledge the many tangents our discussion could take.

A couple of Nell’s recommended books:

Connie Willis, To Say Nothing Of The Dog (Oxford Time Travel)

Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle (World Of Howl #1)

This week’s guest, Greg, shares some warmth from the Gulf Coast of Florida. Greg tells us why his microblog is really his first blog, despite his years of experience building and maintaining websites. We talk about whether the notion of a “challenge” is helpful when it comes to maintaining a blogging streak. At the end, we nerd out a bit about Star Trek: Voyager.

On this week’s episode, Mario (@mariovillalobos) talks photography, social media pros and cons, finding Micro.blog by following Alan Jacobs’ (@ayjay) work, and the surprise that folks in distant places appreciate his photos of leaves in Montana.

Dominik has a lot going on. And we don’t even talk about the house he is building or where he got his internet handle @ohBananaJoe. (But you can check out the song on YouTube.)

Tyler talks about what it means to hit the sweet spot with his microblog, his main site (Parenthetical Recluse) and his newsletter. (He recently started a podcast too.)

We also talk about dogs as a very good reason for microblogging, and Tyler explains what the difference between a Morkie and a Jorkie is.

Kicking off the new year with a chat with Ana, who lives in Portugal. It’s the third in our unintentional series of visits with microbloggers in that country. Ana talks about why she likes Micro.blog and what she’s learned as a member of the community, including the fact that there are more than a few introverts.

This week’s guest is Helge, a Norwegian living in Portugal. He’s been on Micro.blog since the Kickstarter launch in 2017, but he has become more active on his microblog during the pandemic. He has many interests and hobbies, from photography to German cinema to smoking meats. We try to cover them all in this episode.

⭐️ Sunlit 3.2 is now available in the App Store. Sunlit is our companion to Micro.blog just for photos. The new version adds a sharing extension, bookmarks, and more.

🗳 If you’re in the United States, Election Day is tomorrow. Please vote. For voting locations in your area, visit vote411.org.

📅 It’s November which means it’s time for the 2nd annual Microblogvember challenge! Post to your microblog each day using the word prompt and you’ll earn a special pin. It’s a fun way to get into the routine of posting to your own site. (It’s okay if you missed the first few days. It’s not too late to start.)

💬 Many people are participating in Microblogvember. Here’s the day 1 post from @joec for prompt “dreary”:

Preparing myself for what could end up being a very dreary week. Hoping for the best; preparing for the worst.

💬 And here’s a post from @agilelisa :

Ain’t nothing dreary about the opportunity to write everyday, and I’m grateful for the prompts. Looking forward to 29 more!

💬 Or try using the prompt in a poem like @purisubzi :

So dreary These Sunday evenings Ah, look, the blue moon

💬 Today’s prompt for day 2 is “concentrate”, and this post from @jamesdempsey mirrors what a lot of people are thinking:

It will be difficult to concentrate for the next few days.

📚 November is also National Novel Writing Month! Posts that mention NaNoWriMo are collected in a special section of Discover. Good luck @Cheri, @Archimage, @vishae, and anyone else trying to write 50,000 words this month.

📚 Did you know that Micro.blog on the web has a few book-related features, to make it easier to blog about books or discover what books other people are reading? Alan Jacobs has an overview of these hidden features and more on his blog:

Note the link to indiebookclub, a simple, open-web work-in-progress alternative to the bloated, chaotic locked-down mess that is GoodReads. But if you choose to start a new micro.blog post, you get a text field pre-populated with the relevant information.

🎃 There were some fun Halloween posts on Micro.blog over the weekend. Just a few: pumpkins by @patrickrhone, @AlanGMarz, and @endonend.

🇺🇸 Have we mentioned you should vote if you’re in the United States? Election Day is tomorrow. Make a plan: decide what time of day you will vote, where your polling location is, and how you are going to get there.

Maique joins us this week from Lisbon. He worked for two decades as a photojournalist before becoming an independent photographer. He talks about the challenges of doing photography when you can’t travel, and how he copes as a new dad with the flood of baby photos.

We also chatted about the upcoming A Day In The Life global photo challenge and why we shouldn’t overthink our contributions:

I don’t think we can compete with a professional book made by 100 professional photographers, but at the same time, I don’t think 100 professional photographers would be able to do a Micro.blog book because they’re not part of this community.