Archive

@colinwalker Why did you go with Wordpress instead of a hosted micro blog?

@hjertnes I’ve had it since 2008 so adding microblogging into what was already there seemed a natural fit. I was looking at mixing up how I blogged and this gave me the kick I needed. And I prefer having everything in one place rather than multiple blogs.

@colinwalker I'm keeping it separate for now. But are there any other advantages for hosting it yourself?

@hjertnes I like having total ownership and control, the ability to do whatever I want to it. When I first started blogging in 2003 it was on a self-hosted, highly modified SharePoint installation on a PC at home and that ethos has always stuck.

@colinwalker I get that, and I think I'll eventually end up there with my micro blog.

@hjertnes I fell off the wagon for a few years (2013 - 2016) and became a “social blogger” writing at Google+ and then Medium but I was just looking for a change and thought a different platform would give me what I needed. Turned out I just needed a different approach.

@hjertnes It all depends what you’re after: simpler and managed or more complex but controlled. There are compromises to be made both ways.

@colinwalker I'm already managing three other wordpress sites.

Let me see if I get this:

Micro.blog reads your blog rss The Micro.blog apps post to your wordpress install instead of the micro.blog api Replies to what you post are sent to wordpress as comments

@hjertnes That’s right. You need a couple of plugins installed to handle and present the comments properly and there may be some manual theme tweaking that needs to be done.

@colinwalker how about your replies to other users posts?

@hjertnes You can either just use the app (those replies are solely contained within m.b) or write a new post on the blog and send a reply webmention from WordPress (and that’s where it starts getting tricky) as m.b has some support for external replies.

@colinwalker Okay, and are there any way to do that automatically? In other words: every time I post something with (one or more) at-username?

@hjertnes I seem to recall someone wrote a bit of code to auto-link @-mentions but I don't think the person will see it in their Mentions tab. That's why I use the app for replying/mentioning people. I think Manton is working on improving this stuff.

@colinwalker @hjertnes WordPress filter to auto-linkify @-names for Micro.blog ;-)

Per Manton's post that I link in the into, any properly-linked @-name coming in from an external blog does get converted into a Mention in your Mentions tab (this is for plain-jane new posts; it sounded like you guys were talking about self-hosting replies there at the end, so not exactly sure what the "do that" is in @hjertnes last comment).

@smokey @hjertnes Ah Thanks. I thought it was you but couldn’t find it. Good to know that it does create a mention.

@smokey “Do that” meant what ever is required to make sure it shows up in mentions, the thread and external blogs comments (if it is set up)

@colinwalker It's pretty far down in my posts/comments already, and I didn't make the link stand out with the title, either, so no wonder you couldn't find it ;-) I need to practice better “Micro.blog-SEO” in my posts :-P

In a conversation on micro.blog (also a comment thread here Eivind Hjertnes asked why I chose to microblog on WordPress rather than using a hosted account at micro dot blog. The initial answer was simple - I've had this WordPress blog since 2008 so it just made sense. But, as I've said before, it goes way beyond that and is very much the driving factor behind a lot of what I've been doing lately in culling various accounts. Ownership and control. When I first started blogging I was running it from home on an old machine that also housed my Exchange Server. Being able to say that I owned and controlled everything, even down to the hardware, was great. I may have moved to a hosted installation of WordPress, so no longer owned the hardware, but still have full control of how it looks and works, and total ownership of the content. From late 2013 to early 2016 I became a "social blogger" writing on Google+ or Medium but, looking back, I realise this was just because I wanted a different approach and thought a new platform would give me that. I was wrong. Rebooting the blog was one of the best things I've ever done, and microblogging alongside longer posts has given me the new approach I sought. Social blogging may have given me a larger audience (at least on Google+) and I may have convinced myself I didn't care about ownership, but nothing could actually have been further from the truth. I was throwing hundreds of thousands of words away in search of validation. It's just lucky I wrote a lot of them offline so still have a copy. You're never sure what's going to happen with words you don't control. Medium has flip-flopped on different business models. Google+ radically changed its approach after failing to take on Facebook. Facebook itself makes constant changes to the news feed and its priorities. And just look at Huffington Post shutting down its contributor platform - designed to give thousands a voice but have now been suddenly silenced with nothing to show for it. In response to the news, Fred Wilson said it best:

"I would never outsource my content to some third party. I blog on my own domain using open source software..."

He says it feels great to own his archive, brand, content, and (most importantly) himself. And that's exactly why I returned to the blog, why I have shut down my social media accounts, and why I will never write elsewhere again. People may get hung up on the specifications, tricks and tools of the #indieweb and how many you are using but that's all they are, tools. The real essence of the indieweb is precisely what Fred describes - maintaining your independence. Everything else is a bonus.