{"id":6834,"date":"2021-02-07T17:16:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T17:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/?p=6834"},"modified":"2021-02-07T17:17:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-07T17:17:00","slug":"the-loveliest-place-on-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2021\/02\/07\/the-loveliest-place-on-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"The loveliest place on the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"
A close friend of mine recently asked, out of the blue:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a word, the answer is yes<\/em>. For the past few years I\u2019ve been using micro.blog<\/a>, which I\u2019ve come to think of as the loveliest place on the Internet. It isn\u2019t lovely by chance, it has been deliberately designed that way, and is lovingly nurtured to keep it full of positive vibes across its wonderful community.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On the surface, micro.blog is selling blog hosting. For $5\/month<\/a>, you can sign up and host your blog posts there. The monthly fee makes sure that your site isn\u2019t cluttered with any adverts. You can post using apps<\/a> for iOS, iPadOS, MacOS and Android as well as via the web. Blog posts can be \u2018micro\u2019 status updates of 280 characters or less, and if you go over this limit, the official apps and web interface reveal a \u2018title\u2019 field to accompany a more traditional blog post. You can syndicate your posts to Twitter, Medium, Mastodon, LinkedIn and Tumblr, with the full text being posted if it can fit in a tweet, and a title and link posted if it is longer. Photo uploads are included; the official apps helpfully strip out any EXIF metadata<\/a>, such as where the photo was taken, in order to protect your privacy. A $10\/month plan gives you the ability to host short videos or even podcasts (\u2018micro casts\u2019), which you can record using the Wavelength<\/a> iOS app.<\/p>\n

But this is just where the magic starts. You don\u2019t actually need<\/em> to host your content on micro.blog. I\u2019ve had my own blog for many years, and have recently started to take my content off of other platforms such as Instagram and Goodreads and host it myself \u2014 I want my content on my own platform, not somebody else\u2019s. If you have an existing blog like I do, you can create an account and link it to your existing website via an RSS feed. Any post you write on your own blog then gets posted to your micro.blog account, and syndicated to wherever you want it to go. You can even set up multiple feeds with multiple destinations for cross-posting:<\/p>\n

\"I

I post at my own blog and micro.blog picks up the feed<\/p><\/div>\n

Once you have an account set up, you can start to use the main micro.blog interface. Here\u2019s where you will see posts from everyone that you have \u2018followed\u2019, whether they have a micro.blog hosted account or syndicate from their own site. It\u2019s a bit like a calmer, happier version of Twitter:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where some of the thoughtfulness of the design comes in. Discovering people to follow actually takes some effort. You can click on the Discover<\/a><\/em> button to see a set of recent posts from a variety of users, lovingly hand-curated by the micro.blog Community Manager Jean MacDonald<\/a>. If one of these posts catches your eye, you can click on the username or profile photo and press \u2018follow\u2019. That person\u2019s posts will now appear in your timeline. By default you will also see their \u2018replies\u2019 to other members of the community. You can click on a button to view the whole conversation thread, which can lead you to explore and discover more people. This effort means that the emphasis is on quality over quantity, with gradual discovery.<\/p>\n

You can also discover people by selecting someone\u2019s profile and clicking through to see who they follow that you aren\u2019t following:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of the best design choices made on the platform is that there are no follower counts. I have no idea how many other users follow me, or anybody else. There are also no \u2018likes\u2019, just a button to privately bookmark a post for you to access again easily in the future. Reposts (or \u2018retweets\u2019) don\u2019t exist either \u2014 if you like a post that you read and want to amplify it, you need to create a new post of your own. Hashtags are also not supported. Again, the emphasis is on quality and not quantity, on conversations instead of engagement metrics. This works to reduce people posting content just to \u2018go viral\u2019, and keeps the noise down.<\/p>\n

So far, so straightforward. But there\u2019s more magic.<\/p>\n

The creator of micro.blog has authored an iOS app called Sunlit<\/a>, which allows the creation of photo posts on your blog, whether you are hosting your content on micro.blog or externally. You can also see posts from other people that you follow on micro.blog. It\u2019s like viewing the micro.blog content through an Instagram-type lens. The photos you see are from the same timeline<\/strong> that you see in micro.blog. You can comment on and bookmark posts, and switch between the Sunlit app and the main micro.blog apps or web interface. I love an occasional browse through the timeline using this app if I\u2019m in the mood just to see some wonderful photos.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So, this means that all of your content sits on your own blog. No more silos of posts on different platforms.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing that feels most<\/em> magical to me. If someone reads a post of yours on micro.blog, they can reply to it. But in the spirit of you owning your own content, these replies get posted as comments on your original blog post, even if the blog is hosted on your own independent website.<\/strong> Every time this happens, it blows my mind a tiny bit. Here\u2019s an example \u2014 I recently posted about how exhausting the Clubhouse app is<\/a>, which sparked a few comments and conversations. People responded on micro.blog and these ended up as comments on the post on my site:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It really is a wonderful place to spend some time. If you\u2019re looking for an alternative to the noisy, regularly hostile place that the traditional social media platforms have become, and\/or owning your content is important to you, it is well worth checking out. It\u2019s been a source of joy over the past couple of weeks to see a real-life friend regularly posting there, and I know from talking to him that he\u2019s loving it<\/a>.<\/div>\n

A close friend of mine recently asked, out of the blue: In a word, the answer is yes. For the past few years I\u2019ve been using micro.blog, which I\u2019ve come to think of as the loveliest place on the Internet. It isn\u2019t lovely by chance, it has been deliberately designed that way, and is lovingly […]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,16,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-social","7":"category-technology","8":"category-web","9":"h-entry","11":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13297,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2026\/02\/01\/indie-microblogging\/","url_meta":{"origin":6834,"position":0},"title":"\ud83d\udcda Indie Microblogging","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"1 February 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve just finished reading Indie Microblogging by Manton Reece. This book covers a lot of ground, including plenty of detail on the philosophy behind the Micro.blog platform, as well as broader IndieWeb thinking more generally. Reading about these ideas a few years ago, and setting up an account on Micro.blog,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\u201cIf you stop reading after this page, here's what you need to know: Publish short posts and photos to your own website, at your own personal domain name. Make sure your web site has an RSS or JSON feed, and add it to communities like Micro.blog. If you want to participate in larger social networks, post to your own site first and then copy the post to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Massive centralized platforms create problems for society. By posting to your own site, you control your content, distributing it more evenly across the web and minimizing the power of big tech companies.\u201d \u2014 Manton Reece, Indie Microblogging","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12741,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2025\/11\/23\/solving-a-microblog-and-cloudflare-connectivity-issue\/","url_meta":{"origin":6834,"position":1},"title":"Solving a micro.blog and Cloudflare connectivity issue","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"23 November 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m a big believer in the philosophy of \u2018Post (on) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere\u2019, or POSSE, as it has come to be known. 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