Gluing It All Together

I’ve had a blog in some form or another since 1999, and I had personal websites before that, before we had the term “blog”, or the software to power it. One of the things that I love about the open web is how anyone can publish anything. Until recently, I was running an Octopress blog on a web server I had gotten a couple of years ago when I was running my own business. Eventually though, the cost of renting server space just didn’t make sense for a personal blog that I didn’t update that regularly, so I archived everything there, and switched to a Wordpress blog hosted for free at Wordpress.com.

While I used to be all-in with social media, I’ve been gradually pulling away the last few years. After not using Facebook for a long time, I finally deactivated my account. I’m still on Twitter, but the social component there has been lacking for me for a while. Twitter used to seem like a playground, but now it feels like a platform for people with a lot more clout than me.

The platform that I really enjoy is Tumblr. There’s something about the chaotic energy, the any-goes attitude that I love, and I’m so happy that it’s not only survived acquisition, but thrived. But while I love browsing Tumblr, it’s not someplace that I think of to post to. I’ll reboot the things I like or am interested in,  but Tumblr is definitely a secondary blog for me.

Manton Reese’s Micro.blog service is relatively new, and had been on my radar but I hadn’t taken the time to check it out until recently. Micro.blog is an independent, subscription-funded blog service. It provides a social component, allowing you to follow other bloggers, and allows for cross-posting between different services. It really reminds me of App.net, which was where I first ran across Manton years ago, and I’ve found people who I used to follow on App.net on Micro.blog.

So the next step would be to glue it all together. Almost all of my writing starts in Ulysses, and I can publish straight from there to Wordpress. My Wordpress blog is linked to my Micro.blog and my Tumblr, so anything posted to Wordpress gets cross-posted to the other two. Finally, Micro.blog cross-posts to Twitter, so all the bases are covered.

Wordpress, Tumblr, and Twitter are free, supported by ads and promoted tweets. Micro.blog has a free tier, but the cross-posting to Twitter costs two dollars a month. Ulysses switched to a subscription model, which I gladly pay for. I’ve no problem paying for and supporting tools that I use.