Micro Monday

The Omni Show, a podcast that features the people who bring you all the great software from Omni Group, just marked its first anniversary. The host of that show, marketing human Brent Simmons, joins us on Micro Monday to talk about what is special about this type of podcast. It’s important to note that we’re not just getting the stories of people who could potentially be stars later. We want every story and every single person’s voice. I often think back to the punk rock ethos: kill all rock stars. The audience and the band should be interchangeable. We also talk about his project, NetNewsWire, an app he first launched in 2002, sold to another company in 2005, and then re-acquired this year. That leads us to talking about RSS and Micro.blog, and what we hope to see in the future of the internet and social media.

This week’s guest, Chris Campbell, teaches film in Nova Scotia. He reviews a LOT of films on Letterboxd and also posts a photo a day to his microblog. His blogging life story starts on a server in Antarctica and has gone through several iterations before reaching his current setup, using SquareSpace and Micro.blog.

We’re back with another episode of Micro.blog Q&A with founder Manton Reece. Community members submitted questions, and we were able to get quite a few without turning this episode into a macrocast, including: * Will you add post categories? * Can Wavelength be used with WordPress-hosted podcasts? * What are the plans for offering portability and back-ups of microblogs? * What is the status of accessibility improvements? Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. If you missed the first episode of Q&A, you can listen to it here.

Rich Anderson comes to Micro Monday, and we talk a lot about music. He’s hosted the podcast Crush On Music, he works in online marketing at the Metropolitan Opera, and he is a competitive air guitarist. We chat about all these cool things, plus microblogging and Mastodon.

After many years of producing tech-oriented blogs such as Mac Tips and KnowIT, Miraz Jordan has settled in at Micro.blog to post the “bits and bobs” that interest her. Her blog features a delightful combination of commentary, links, photos of the New Zealand coast north of Wellington, cute dogs, and even a runaway horse. Miraz also shares the custom CSS she used to format photos on her blog. She still likes sharing tech tips.

On this week’s episode, Jean chats with Daniel Jalkut, the developer of MarsEdit, the blogging editor for Mac. As co-host with Manton on the Core Intuition podcast for 10 years (

This week, Jean talks to Aleen Simms, proprietor of App Launch Map, podcast host (Originality) and frequent podcast guest (The Incomparable), and a lover of fancy pens, inks, and journals. We avoid the temptation to talk about guinea pigs and kitties, and focus instead on where we find ourselves in the new social media landscape. Aleen on Mastodon Jean on Mastodon Aleen at Beauty Counter

On the podcast this week is Michael Barrett, an artist who enjoys experimenting with new technologies and pushing the boundaries of what we expect from art online. We talk about how he’s moved his website to his Micro.blog-hosted site, with a distinctive custom CSS style he built himself. Michael’s Custom CSS project on Github Guacamole Tips Do You Have A Pool? Michael’s Instagram Grid Projects

This week’s guest is Joyce Garcia, an editor with many years of experience in journalism and media. We take a walk down memory lane, discussing the history of online news and blogging, while meandering to such subjects as floppy disks, daisy wheel printers, computer punch cards, and typewriters, eventually getting to the merits of microblogging on Micro.blog. Episode 31 Transcript

Our guest this week is Amit Gawande, who codes for a living but lives for reading and writing. He is the creator of Microthreads, a tool for finding users and conversations to follow on Micro.blog. We talk about the many blog platforms he’s used over the years, and why the simplicity of Micro.blog makes it easier to just write. Episode 30: @amit Transcript

This week’s guest, Halsted Bernard, has quite a multitude of interests (gaming, linguistics, virtual reality, cooking, fountain pens, quantified self), so it was hard to narrow it down to just a couple for the microcast, but we managed to discuss analog journaling in a digital hangout, her science fiction responsibilities at the library, and her cat Zen. (Interested in joining the online hangout for analog journaling? Send a mention to @cygnoir!) Episode 29: @cygnoir Transcript

This week, our guest is Simon Woods from the UK. He is the creator of the Micro.blog community resource @til, aka Today I Learned. We talk about his life as a citizen of the Internet, which includes blogging, working from home, and cats, of course. What Micro.blog Needs, posted by Simon on August 31, 2018. Episode 28: @simonwoods Transcript

Today we feature a chat with Sameer Vasta, “an avid letterwriter, an avid pedestrian, and an avid reader.” We talk about his work in employee experience for the government of Ontario, and his thoughts on language and civility in online communities, including Micro.blog. Episode 27: @vasta Transcript

I get a second chance to record in the very cool Airstream podcast studio at XOXO conference, because I ran into Aaron Parecki. He is an organizer at StreamPDX, so he has the keys to the Airstream! Aaron is also one of the founders of the IndieWeb movement, so we talk about IndieWeb, Micro.blog, and the importance of having your own domain to control your content and your internet presence. IndieWebCamp IndieWebCat

This is a special extra edition of Micro Monday, recorded at the XOXO Festival with Doug Beal. The interview was recorded in an Airstream Trailer, the mobile podcast and storytelling studio provided by StreamPDX. It was a fun experience, and I thank Doug for being the guinea pig and doing a live recording on a moment’s notice. Foolscap Convention, February 1-3, 2019, Seattle, WA “Foolscap is a new kind of convention. We bring together writers, artists, fans, thinkers and makers to create a weekend-long conversation about the things that excite us. Everyone is interesting at Foolscap. By bringing together a community of diverse interests and experiences, we make a space where we all learn from each other.”

Two Micro Monday episodes on one Monday! They don’t call it Labor Day in the U.S. for nothing. This episode features Jeff Mueller, creator of (the soon-to-be-renamed) ADN Finder, a tool for finding people from the former App.net as well as Mastodon and Micro.blog. We also chat about why, compared to other social networks, Jeff likes it here.

In this episode of Micro Monday, we talk to Belle Cooper in Melbourne, Australia, who is the creator of the Android Micro.blog client Pico. She is also one half of the team at Hello Code, developers of Exist and Larder. We talk quite a bit about the community spirit at Micro.blog and how it’s evolving, but we do spend a little time at the end to chat about Belle’s beautiful Samoyed puppy and why Samoyeds make the worst guard dogs.

This week’s special episode is a Q&A with Manton Reece, founder of Micro.blog. Jean poses questions submitted by the Micro.blog community, including: Which new features will be added next? How can the onboarding process be improved to support new users? Is it helpful or problematic to be compared to Twitter? Which feature does Manton wish he had implemented yesterday? It’s a little longer than the typical Micro Monday microcast! We look forward to hearing what you think and what questions you have for a future Q&A episode.

This week, Jean talks to Collin Donnell in a wide-ranging episode that starts out with a look at the current state of affairs in social networking but ends on an upbeat note that includes dogs, guinea pigs and the popularity of photoblogging. Collin: “It took me a little while to realize how much Micro.blog isn’t Twitter, that it’s really a completely different thing.” PS. Collin is the one who helped me level up in my podcast production skills. I highly recommend his blog post How To Sound Good On A Podcast! – Jean

This week, Jean has a great chat with Dori Smith, a longtime blogger, programmer, and writer of great books, such as Javascript: Visual QuickStart Guide. Backup Brain, the blog she created with her late husband Tom Negrino, is almost 20 years old. Her experience gives her an interesting perspective on blogging and social media.