Micro Monday

Episode 40: Khaled Abou Alfa, aka @kaa

Sun, 09 Dec 2018 23:49:10 -0800

This week, Khaled Abou Alfa discusses his philosophy of blogging, which he’s been doing for over 14 years. He explains how a short post by John Gruber provided the impetus to start using his Micro.blog account.

Khaled: “I think I am blogging more now than ever did since 2004, when blogging was really new and exciting, which is a great testament to Micro.blog.

Jean: “If we did advertising, that would be on a billboard.

Episode 39: Brent Simmons, podcasting and blogging at Omni

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 11:07:22 -0800

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.

Episode 38: Chris Campbell, aka @bitdepth

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:55:46 -0800

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.

37: Questions and Answers With @manton

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 11:11:18 -0800

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.

Episode 36: Rich Anderson aka @sanspoint

Sun, 11 Nov 2018 22:59:59 -0800

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. 🎸

Episode 35: Miraz Jordan aka @Miraz

Sun, 04 Nov 2018 23:23:42 -0800

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. 🙂

Episode 34: Daniel Jalkut aka @danielpunkass

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 13:48:05 -0700

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 (🎉), Daniel has had a front-row seat at Micro.blog’s inception and evolution. We examine the multifaceted nature of Micro.blog, its dual nature as a business and a mission, and how we are still figuring where to put our social media energies.

Episode 33: Aleen Simms aka @aleen

Mon, 22 Oct 2018 14:10:43 -0700

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

Episode 32: @abouthalf

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 08:22:52 -0700

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

Episode 31: Joyce Garcia aka @garciabuxton

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 00:40:21 -0700

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

Episode 30: @amit

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 12:01:44 -0700

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

Episode 29: @cygnoir

Mon, 24 Sep 2018 00:00:05 -0700

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

Episode 28: @simonwoods

Mon, 17 Sep 2018 15:25:19 -0700

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

Episode 27: @vasta

Mon, 10 Sep 2018 09:00:32 -0700

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

Micro Monday Extra: Late Night In The Airstream with @aaronpk at XOXO

Sun, 09 Sep 2018 07:51:23 -0700

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

Micro Monday Extra: Interviewing @dougbeal at the XOXO Festival in an AirstreamTrailer

Sat, 08 Sep 2018 20:03:28 -0700

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."

Episode 26: @jeffmueller

Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:54:09 -0700

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.

Episode 25: @belle

Sun, 02 Sep 2018 22:04:39 -0700

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.

Episode 24: @manton Answers Your Questions

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:07:27 -0700

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.

23: @collin

Mon, 20 Aug 2018 14:35:11 -0700

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

Episode 22: @dori

Mon, 13 Aug 2018 09:57:17 -0700

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.

Micro Monday Extra: Micro Meetup in Minneapolis

Fri, 10 Aug 2018 06:37:37 -0700

Noisy cafe alert! Jean is in Minneapolis to support the launching of a new App Camp For Girls organization, and had a chance to attend a Micro Meetup with Patrick, Tim, Rob, and Isaac. The recording conditions were less than ideal, so this is a short one, but very educational for the first-time visitor to the Twin Cities.

Episode 21: @Lioncourt

Mon, 06 Aug 2018 14:35:35 -0700

This week, Jean talks with Josh de Lioncourt on the day his new novel Haven Divided, Book 2 in his Dragon’s Brood Cycle, was released. In addition to fiction, Josh also writes software, music, and tech articles, but we didn’t get to discuss any of that because we were too busy talking about ice hockey.

Episode 20: @Burk

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:00:36 -0700

This week, Jean has a nice chat with Jason Burk. Jason has been actively curating several resources for the Micro.blog community, including a directory of Tagmoji used or proposed for the Discover section, a listing of Micro meetups, and a microcast directory.

Micro Monday Extra: @verso at Chicago-O'Hare airport, talking about Macstock

Mon, 23 Jul 2018 21:09:55 -0700

In this special extra edition of the Micro Monday Microcast, Kelly Guimont and Jean have enough time before their plane home to Portland to talk about the fantastic experience they had at the 2018 Macstock Expo and Conference, and to start making plans for the 2019 event.

Episode 19: @endonend

Mon, 23 Jul 2018 06:14:33 -0700

Jason Dettbarn, a UX analyst in his day job, is a partner and programmer at Relic Scout, a tool to track and buy the comic books on your want list. He’s also a husband and a father to three girls. His twins saved up their allowance to adopt Laverne and Shirley, two adorable guinea pigs, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this episode of Micro Monday runs a little longer than usual.

18: @EddieHinkle

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 12:04:14 -0700

This week, Jean talks to Eddie Hinkle. He’s a software engineer who lives in the Washington DC area, and he is working on several interesting projects, including Indigenous, an iOS app that provides an interface for the IndieWeb. Jean was grateful that Eddie could make the time to chat, especially as he is also a father-to-be whose child is due this week!

Episode 17: @eli

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 09:14:07 -0700

Eli Mellen, an art historian and printmaker turned web developer, talks to Jean about how he went from his “angsty LiveJournal” to being a proponent of the IndieWeb, and why he likes the new IndieWeb Ring. Eli is also the maintainer of Micro.wiki: Community resources for the avid Micro.blogger.

Episode 16: @vanessa

Mon, 25 Jun 2018 08:51:13 -0700

Vanessa Hamshere is a musician, a crafter, a photographer, and one of the “fountain pens, paper, and planners gang.” We talk about how online communities evolve and thrive, and how a good mix of technical expertise and interests helps everyone.

It’s nice to have a group of people from across the world with different interests. I love random conversations.

Episode 15: @mnmltek

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 11:57:05 -0700

This week, Jean interviews the host of the the mnmltek microcast, Chris Powell.

Chris’s passion is sharing tech knowledge and other help for humans. In addition to the microcast, Chris blogs, podcasts, and writes a newsletter. “If you’re not sharing your thoughts, opinions, or what’s inside of you, you need to know that your voice matters.”

Episode 14: @jw

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 09:42:19 -0700

Jim Withington, joins us on Micro Monday. Jim is currently a web developer in Portland who describes himself as someone who likes getting excited about things and blogging about them. We talk about the XOXO Conference in Portland, about the unexpected delight of photoblogging with Micro.blog, and whether Micro.dog should be a thing.

Episode 13: @fiona

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 07:29:27 -0700

This week, we talk to Fiona Voss. She is is a software engineer and a computer science student. We talk about how the theoretical can inform the practical, how one gets started in programming, and why she appreciates the Micro.blog community. “We feel we have something in common because we are on Micro.blog. We are on it because we care about community and we care about the open web.”

Mentioned:

RailsBridge

Episode 12: @smokey

Mon, 28 May 2018 08:32:10 -0700

This week we hear from Smokey Ardisson, a historian and specialist in Middle East studies—who also worked on the Camino browser. We talk about the intersection of technology and the liberal arts, introverts and social networks, and how the historians of the future might judge Micro.blog.

Episode 11: @mikedotfm

Mon, 21 May 2018 15:04:42 -0700

Mike Haynes, creator of Dialog, talks to Jean on the Micro Monday Microcast about how the creatively ambitious and prolific Micro.blog community has inspired him to blog regularly and to try many new things. “The positive atmosphere is so contagious,” says Mike.

Micro Monday Special: An Interview With Martin Hartl

Mon, 21 May 2018 11:12:14 -0700

This week, in addition to our regular microcast, we have a special interview I did via email with @hartlco, Martin Hartl. - Jean

Hi Martin! Why don’t you tell the Micro.blog community a little bit about yourself?

I’m 26 years old, and I work as an iOS developer for a football (aka soccer 😉) startup in Berlin, Germany. I grew up in a tiny village in northern Bavaria and moved to Berlin after graduating from university.

I’m the developer of Icro, a 3rd party iOS App for Micro.blog, which was recently released on the App Store.

When I’m not working or building side-projects, my girlfriend and I like to travel a lot. Our last notable vacation was a 2 weeks road trip through Romania’s Transylvania region. Other than that, I love to cook at home, especially pizza! I like cars and driving, even though I never owned a car myself.

What other apps have you developed?

The first app I developed, Clickery, is still available in the App Store. It’s a very, very basic tally counter. Later I released Noteness. It’s a diary app for multiple sclerosis patients to keep track of their medication and symptoms. The user-base is tiny but it’s very rewarding working on something that actually makes peoples lives easier. Every time I update the app for the next iPhone or iOS versions, all the users are excited and happy. I should probably put more effort into it in the future, as very obvious and basic features are still missing.

The last app I released before Icro was Mentio. It is a small wish-list app for the App Store that includes the iTunes Store and iBooks. I built it around the time iOS 7 was released and I used it as a playground for all the new iOS-related technologies that were introduced. Besides working on apps, I also try to contribute to the open source community as much as I can.

How did you get interested in app development and iOS app development in particular?

While growing up, I was always exposed to computers. Almost every minute of my spare time I was either playing games, messing around with Microsoft Office or browsing the web. Back then, the only operating systems I knew were Windows and unstable Linux distributions. Around 2004, I got an iPod Mini and I quickly realized that there is all whole other computer world out there. I loved the design and the user interface, as it was such a contrast to everything I knew before. That’s how my interest in Apple started.

At that time, I didn’t consider becoming a programmer. In my head, working with computers was my hobby and not a thing I would do for a living. This changed when the original iPhone was released, and especially later when the App Store was introduced. Suddenly I was exposed to so many great apps and I knew that that was something I want to do as well. I started learning Objective-C and the iPhone SDK, studied computer science, and began building apps.

What motivated you to develop Icro?

Icro started out as a learning project. I wanted to try out new ways to architect an iOS app, focusing on communication with backend APIs. At my day job, I work on a large codebase. This makes it harder to try and experiment with new ideas and approaches sometimes. For me, it was obvious I would use the Micro.blog APIs for this experiment, as they are transparent and open. After seeing how quickly I was progressing with the development of Icro, I decided to polish it and release it publicly. Third party apps were the reason I enjoyed Twitter and App.net, and I hope Icro will help to make Micro.blog more enjoyable for others as well.

What do you want to do next with Icro?

There are many big features still missing. At the moment I’m working on a small update to fix some bugs and Dynamic Type. This enables users to choose the text size inside Icro using the system settings.

For the next bigger update, I’m focusing on image upload for Micro.blog-hosted and self-hosted sites. Favoriting posts should come with this update.

There is also WWDC coming up soon. This might influence the possible list of new features as well. In the future, I would love to work on a Mac app again. Maybe Icro will be the perfect opportunity for this as well.

How did you hear about Micro.blog?

I‘m a long-time listener of the Core Intuition podcast by Daniel Jalkut and Manton Reece. I think I started listening around the time when App.net gained some popularity in the Apple community. The moment Manton revealed Micro.blog and launched the Kickstarter campaign, I was immediately intrigued and backed the project.

Did you have a blog or blogs before Micro.blog?

Yes, I started my very first blog back in 2006. It was supposed to be a site in German focusing on the Mac and the iPod. I believe it did not have a single reader, as there are no traces of this site in the internet archive. After this, I had several different blogs, Tumblr sites, and general websites but all of them were inactive after a few months. I started my current site back in 2014. Even on this blog, there are long stretches without content. I noticed writing long-form posts is not something that I really enjoy. My site became way more active the moment I started microblogging!

What do you like to blog about or to share via Micro.blog?

In general, I enjoy sharing small thoughts and updates on my site and Micro.blog. I post everything that comes to my head and I consider worth sharing. I also like to link to new products/apps or nice posts I come across. I still use Instagram, but every new picture I post there will be published on my Micro.blog first. I also plan to import my whole Instagram archive to my site.

What do you like about Micro.blog?

For me, the single most important part about Micro.blog is the community. It is very welcoming to everyone and focuses on positive aspects. The negativity and hate happening on Twitter are slowly driving me away from that site. Micro.blog feels like the exact opposite to this.

The support and positive feedback I get from the community for developing Icro is incredible. That is something I never experienced before. I think the open and transparent way Micro.blog is run is a big part of guiding the community to stay friendly and inclusive.

If you were to produce a microcast, what would be the subject?

I never really thought about starting a microcast but I think I would enjoy doing something related to cooking. Talking about new recipes I tried, new techniques, equipment, eating out. I think there would be a lot to talk about, I’m just not sure if someone would be interested in listening.

On a completely different topic: do you have any pets?

At the moment I don’t have any pets but I’m a huge dog fan. In my childhood, we had two dogs and I loved it. I’m that kind of person that stares at dogs in the park and always wants to pet them. I think sooner or later we will get a dog for ourselves but at the moment we still focus too much on traveling. This would be way harder to do with a dog and I also would not want to give him/her away while we are on vacation.

Thanks, Martin, for taking the time to do this interview, and thanks for creating Icro!

Episode 10: @Vishae

Mon, 14 May 2018 13:18:38 -0700

This week, Jean talks to Serena Ho, who lives in Melbourne, Australia. She appreciates the work of those who are building tools and apps for the community, but emphasizes that you don’t have to be a coder to contribute. “Because Micro.blog is so new, it’s one of those exciting opportunities where you can help shape something… What are the social norms on this platform? People are still trying to work that out.”

Episode 9: @herself

Mon, 07 May 2018 09:20:21 -0700

Jean welcomes Jess Nickelsen to the microcast to talk about living in New Zealand, how she found out about Micro.blog, the shutdown of Diary-X, and why the early days of blogging were like a window into another part of the world.

Episode 9: @herself Transcript

Episode 8: Transcript

Sun, 06 May 2018 07:56:45 -0700

Guest: Sergio Ruiz, @Sergio_101

Release date: April 30, 2018

@macgenie: Hey it’s Micro Monday again, the weekly microcast where we get to know members of the Micro.blog community. I’m Jean MacDonald, the community manager here at Micro.blog. And today I am very pleased to welcome Sergio Ruiz, who is @sergio_101 at Micro.blog. Hey Sergio, welcome to Micro Monday. How are you doing?

@Sergio_101: Good, good thanks for having me. This is like the first time or the second time I think I’ve ever been interviewed. So it’s awesome.

@macgenie: I’m really looking forward to this. And before we get into our questions, I would love it if you could tell the listeners a little bit about yourself.

@Sergio_101: OK. Presently I live in the middle of the Midwest, a little town in Ohio that’s about an hour from Cleveland, an hour from Columbus, and an hour from Akron, which means that I get to see a lot of good concerts. It’s a good place to live, now that we have the advent of internet radio, my life is so much better. By day, I am a software developer for a company locally here. So I write code all day, and that also happens that my hobby is writing code. So I’ve been doing that for probably 25-30 years now. And so when I’m not doing that, I read too many books, I play too many chess games, I build electronic stuff and I work as a side gig as a music producer in a studio here in town. I never get to sleep.

@macgenie: Wow, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on to the podcast today, because that’s quite a full plate of activities for you. Well let’s start with our usual first question which is: how did you hear about Micro.blog?

@Sergio_101: I heard about it on one of the TWiT network podcasts, I think it was probably This Week In Tech or one of those Leo Laporte-hosted ones. He was talking about alternatives to Twitter and alternatives to Facebook. And at that point I was looking for both of those. So I immediately hopped on here and checked it out to see what was going on.

@macgenie: Well that’s really cool that the folks over at TWiT are interested in Micro.blog and I do think that their audience is a good audience for Micro.blog as well. Did did you have a blog before Micro.blog? I’m guessing the answer is yes.

@Sergio_101: I had a couple of blogs actually. I had a blog before blog software was available. It’s a long story. Back in the mid 90s, I was in a band and we were playing everywhere, all over the place. And I was doing photography for behind the scenes backstage, you know, all that kind of stuff and reporting on what was going on on the road through a magazine. It was a little paper flyer called The Village buzz and it was about our travels on the road with all of our favorite bands and stuff. So I ended up making a web site using one of the old PHP CMSs and I can’t even remember what it was called, but it ended up breaking all the time. It kept getting hacked because it was open source, getting hacked all the time. So I decided that that format was not really conducive to what we were doing, because everything had to be pigeonholed and there was a lot of layout issues. And there was nobody on the Internet yet, there was a couple of dorks, and I was one of them. At that time, I thought, “Wow, it really it doesn’t make sense to have to pigeonhole everything and make everybody work so hard to find what they’re interested in. It would make more sense to do like reverse chronological order and just put everything up to the front.” So I started looking around and there was nothing. So I ended up, and I know that I’ll get crucified for this, but I ended up writing a thing in ASP because that’s the only server that we had at that time, so I had to hurry up and learn ASP, and hurry up and figure out how to get a database set up but that was it. We ran that there a long time and people followed that for a long time.

@macgenie: That’s good. So what was the name of your band?

@Sergio_101: My band was called Adrenaline Rocket.

@macgenie: Good name! And what did you play?

@Sergio_101: I play the drums and we did indie rock post punk kind of thing. It was a lot of fun.

@macgenie: Yeah, music and making music like that and performing I know myself, I got into it relatively late in life through the Rock n Roll Camp for Girls here in Portland. They did a program for women. We formed a band at camp and then we played in a club at the end of the program. It was so fun and so a lot of the women, just like the girls who do the girls camp, got really hooked on that and I was also. I also had a band for a few years where we played around mostly in Portland but we did once play in Vancouver, British Columbia. That was cool.

@Sergio_101: Awesome!

@macgenie: So tell me about how you’re using your Micro.blog blog, whether more for social or do you have certain content you like to post right.

@Sergio_101: I’m kind of just feeling my way around. The thing that first I was kind of puzzled with Micro.blog was that you don’t have any idea who is following you. And if somebody likes something, you don’t know about it. And so the only way that you know that somebody has heard what you’re talking about is if they respond back, which now that I’m playing with it, it really makes much more sense. Because Twitter, which is along the same lines in that it’s short content, the problem I have is that it’s just so much chatter that you get back, if you post something you get tagged if somebody likes your thing, if somebody responds to it, all kinds of chatter.

So I found Micro.blog as a way to talk about whatever I’m thinking about and not being exposed to the chatter that happens afterward. So I’m posting and just looking around for people who are interested in same kind of things. One of my favorite computer programming languages is Smalltalk, and I find that there’s a lot of people that do it and people don’t generally talk about it too much, so I’m looking for people who are interested in that, interested in the same kind of things I am into: Internet radio, music, books, that kind of thing. I don’t want to say I’m apolitical, but that’s not really what floats my boat. It’s all the political chatter on Twitter and Facebook. So I look for more things that are fun and interesting.

@macgenie: Well that that’s cool. That’s what I like about Micro.blog, but it definitely has taken me a while to get in the mindset and I notice that I’m in the mindset when I go back to Twitter and I’m like “Oh my!” It’s not just the volume, because I’ve really pared down the number of people I really follow, and I also have disabled retweeting on almost everybody, which is really great. I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier. On the other hand nothing beats like Twitter right now for getting the word out about something new. And so that is one of the reasons I do stay on Twitter and follow the people I follow. Micro.blog will get there as well. I think we’ve gathered such a thoughtful group, I believe that the number of followers won’t be as important as the quality of the followers.

@Sergio_101: Right. And that’s what I like about it is that the quality is there, right now even thumbing through Discover, it’s a good way to see what’s going on, to see who’s out there.

@macgenie: Is there anything else about Micro.blog that you like, or anything you want to comment on about the platform? That would be a great way to wrap up this podcast.

@Sergio_101: Sure. One of the things I think is really interesting is that Manton is on there and posting all the time and answering things all the time. As as I’ve grown as a software developer, I’ve pretty much learned that language and framework don’t matter. Once you get to a certain point, then what becomes really important is being able to present an idea or an outlook into a set of data that makes sense and that gleans things that you wouldn’t otherwise see or that you wouldn’t otherwise intuit. It’s really interesting to watch the conversations that people are having with Manton and watching him process these things and take these things seriously. And you have all the people that are commenting are commenting serious things.So watching that that discussion take place and seeing things change in the application, that’s really super interesting.

@macgenie: I agree. Everything has evolved quite a bit since we first launched. It’s almost been a year since the platform opened up to Kickstarter backers and it’s hard for me to remember how rudimentary some of these things were that have evolved over time. I really appreciate you taking the time to come in today and talk with me on Micro Monday. Thanks so much, Sergio!

@Sergio_101: Thank you!

@macgenie: And to everybody else out there, thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next Monday.

Episode 8: @Sergio_101

Mon, 30 Apr 2018 11:54:17 -0700

Sergio Ruiz talks about how being a drummer in a band and a backstage photographer led him to create his first blog, before the days of blogging software. Besides music and photography, Sergio is into coding, both professionally and as a hobby. He likes Micro.blog as a place to seek out and engage with like-minded people.

Read the transcript.

Episode 7: Transcript

Sun, 29 Apr 2018 21:24:01 -0700

Guest: @RosemaryOrchard

Release date: April 23, 2018

@macgenie: Hey it’s micro Monday again the weekly microcast where we get to know members of the Micro.blog community. I’m Jean MacDonald, the community manager here at Micro.blog and I’m very pleased to have as my guest today Rosemary Orchard who is @rosemaryorchard on Micro.blog. Hey Rosemary, how are you doing?

@rosemaryorchard: I’m good. Thank you very much for having me.

@macgenie: I’m really glad you’re here. Why don’t we start with you telling the listeners a little bit about yourself.

@rosemaryorchard: Well, as you said, my name is Rosemary. I am a software developer originally from the UK and I now live and work in Vienna in Austria.

@macgenie: Wow. I love Austria. I’ve been all over there, but that’s not what this podcast is about. So I refrain from picking your brain about the virtues of Vienna versus Innsbruck versus… Sound of Music Town [editor’s note: Salzburg]. I have watched The Sound of Music one million times.

@rosemaryorchard: Hasn’t everybody?

@macgenie: So how long have you lived in Vienna?

@rosemaryorchard: Oh I’ve been living in Vienna since 2015, so about two and a half years at the moment.

@macgenie: How did you hear about Micro.blog all the way in Vienna? As if it’s far away! Digitally speaking, you’re just next door.

@rosemaryorchard: Well, digitally speaking, it wasn’t very far away at all. Manton was on Mac Power Users Episode 417 and I am a big Mac Power Users fan. I heard about it and thought, “Oooh, I think I vaguely heard about something like this before!” It might have popped up on Twitter, but I’d heard about it. I thought “Great! That sounds really nice. Nice people. I’m going to sign up and give it a try”.” And I did.

@macgenie: That’s cool yes I’m a big Mac Power Users fan myself and I’ve been listening to it since Episode 1. But that’s another story. This is not the Mac Power Users Microcast. However we can totally recommend that podcast to our Mac-using community at Micro.blog. So were you blogging before you heard about Micro.blog.

@rosemaryorchard: Yes, I’ve had blogs in one form or another since about 2011. Now thankfully the Internet has eaten most of those, because quite frankly some of it would be pretty embarrassing to look at now. I have my own separate blog blog and then I have my microblog as well.

@macgenie: Do you have the two lke integrated? How are you hosting your main blog?I’m curious about that because everybody at Micro.blog has many choices if they don’t just use the Micro.blog hosting, there’s a lot to sort out.

@rosemaryorchard: Yes, I am using a CMS called Grav. It’s open source and it’s free. I have my blog and my microblog on that, and I’ve separated them out. So while they’re both on the same website, they’re two separate RSS and JSON feeds, two separate pages. I know they’re not 100 percent integrated, but you can see both of them very easily.

@macgenie: This is totally off of our usual interview questions, but I’m just curious because I know of people who listen to this, not everybody has that much experience with the underpinnings of blog hosting and integrating things into one another. Do you think that that’s a good way to go? Like for for maybe not for a beginner, but for somebody who maybe used WordPress before ?

@rosemaryorchard: Absolutely. For Grav, it was a little bit tricky. I’ve had to create my own install of a service for Jekyll and hack it to make it work for Grav and I wouldn’t recommend to start with that. That would be much too much and it took me quite a long time to figure it out. The WordPress setup is fairly easy. You’ve got a couple of plug-ins which would make it super easy to set everything up for standard Micropub formatting. So if people want to give it a go, they should absolutely give it a shot. But a microblog is a really nice way to try it out, because you have a limit of 280 characters. There’s not a lot you can say and not a lot you can get wrong in 280 characters either.

@macgenie: That’s a really great way of putting it. I think there’s a lot of resources available in our Micro.blog community. People, I’ve noticed, have been really helpful, helping others find the way to get something the way they want it. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel necessarily.

@rosemaryorchard: It’s really nice. If you look in the timeline, then you see other people suggesting things that might help somebody else out. And it’s one of my favorite things.

@macgenie: So what kind of content do you have on your blog?

@rosemaryorchard: Well my main blog is technology-based and then my microblog is stream of consciousness, it’s my replacement for Twitter and Facebook. So you get pictures of food that I’m eating, planes that I’m sitting on, the seat next to me on the plane was a recent one, all sorts of things. Just whatever takes my fancy.

@macgenie: As you know, we usually wrap this up with the question “What do you like about Micro.blog?” And you’ve alreadymentioned a couple of things. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

@rosemaryorchard: Yes. I love the community. So whether it’s the little Slack channels or just Micro.blog in general, you always see people sharing things and it’s for the enjoyment of others. So you don’t see people harassing other people and so on, which I know was one of the points of Micro.blog and why you’re the community manager. I liked that there’s a person who is the community manager, and she has a name, and her name is Jean MacDonald, and she’s lovely. [editor’s note: blushing] It makes me feel safe, though I am very fortunate that I’ve never felt unsafe on the internet, but it’s really nice to have people there looking out for you, whom you can help look out for as well.

@macgenie: I really appreciate that you came on today to share your experiences and your insights into Micro.blog, Rosemary. Thanks for coming today.

@rosemaryorchard: Thank you very much for having me. It’s been lovely to be on.

@macgenie: And for everybody else, thank you for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.

Episode 7: @RosemaryOrchard

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 13:13:15 -0700

For this week, Jean welcomes Rosemary Orchard to the microcast to talk about how she uses her microblog, why microblogs make for great blogs to experiment with, and her thoughts on the Micro.blog community.

Episode 6: Transcript

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 13:59:53 -0700

Guest: Jonathan Hays

Release date: April 16, 2018

@macgenie: Hey it’s Micro Monday again, the weekly microcast where we get to know members of the Micro.blog community. I’m Jean MacDonald Community Manager at Micro.blog, and today I am joined by Jonathan Hayes who’s also known as @cheesemaker. Hey Jonathan how are you doing?

@cheesemaker: Good. How are you doing Jean?

@macgenie: I’m doing pretty good. It’s been a big day at Micro.blog which we can talk about a little bit today, but why don’t we start off with you telling our listeners a little bit about yourself?

@cheesemaker: Sure. I live in Portland, Oregon, in the same town as you, and I am a founder of a consulting company called Silver Pine software. But more importantly for the folks listening, I’m also one of the developers of both Sunlit and the recently-announced Wavelength.

@macgenie: The first question we always ask people is how did you hear about Micro.blog? But I think you could tell us a little bit about how did you meet Manton Reece. Because I’m sure how you heard about Micro.blog.

@cheesemaker: Sure. So I first met Manton about eight or nine years ago at all places Chuck E. Cheese. Our sons went to the same kindergarten and my son invited his son to his birthday party. And so when Manton came to pick up his son, he was wearing a T-shirt that said “I make Mac software” and so I asked him you know what’s that about. And so we got to talking and over time we sort of ran in the same iOS development circles and became close friends because of our sons’ friendship. Eventually we were we were on a vacation together. And we said, “Hey what do you think about making an app together?” and that’s actually how the genesis of sunlit.

@macgenie: For the benefit of those who don’t know, what is Sunlit and what does it do?

@cheesemaker: So Sunlit is a photo-sharing app, or a photo-blogging app more appropriately now. We originally wrote it for the App.net platform way back in the day. And obviously for listeners that are familiar with that that platform, you know went away and we sort of shelved sunlit for a few years. But then when Manton started working on the Micro.blog platform, we actually pulled it out of us cold storage and started tinkering with it and we sort of realized “Oh you know this could be perfect for photo blogging for the Micro.blog platform, and we rewrote a lot of the internals, got rid of all of the App.net specific code and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

@macgenie: Actually what I like about that app and also about Wavelength, like Micro.blog itself, is just the simple elegance of “Hey, do this thing, don’t get too crazy,” it just gets right to the point and makes it accessible to people who don’t necessarily want a big learning curve on an app or some kind of serious onboarding video to teach them how to use it.

@cheesemaker: Right. And one of the things that I love about it is I have been a pretty heavy Instagram user. But when we created sunlit and I started using it more on a daily basis, I really started to notice the things that really annoyed me about Instagram. Obviously there’s the biggest thing of not owning your own content, but the other thing the resolution and the quality of your photos on Instagram is terrible if you try to zoom in on them or anything, whereas obviously if you’re using Sunlit and you own your own content, you can make sure that you’re posting your photos at higher res. That and when you own your content, it’s just so much easier to have all the other tools like searchability, those sorts of things. You’re not just locked in on the one platform. I know that’s obviously Manton’s you know bigger grander scheme vision for Micro.blog in general. But it was nice to actually see it applied in a very specific way with Sunlit.

@macgenie: What I really like about Micro.blog, well there’s obviously many things I like, but I’ve come to appreciate how it’s very Instagram-like. Plus the good things about Twitter plus the good things about Wordpress or other simple blogging platform. I’ve really come to appreciate how well Micro.blog and Sunlit handle photos as you say. And when I go on Twitter and I’m looking at people’s photos, it’s fine to see the photo itself. But in the timeline, in the way that they show things, it’s not that nice looking to me, now that I’m used to Micro.blog. So what do you remember from when Manton first started working on Micro.blog or telling you about it and any thoughts you had about it at the time?

@cheesemaker: Yes so I don’t it’s I mean I have a sort of fuzzy memory approximately when he started working on it. It obviously had a different name back then, Snippets I think is what he was calling it. And I know at the time he had a very clear vision, but I think he was still trying to figure out how to communicate that effectively. So I remember having a few conversations with him where I was sort of left scratching my head like “what, are you building a Twitter clone?” Obviously that’s not what it is, but it was still early defining exactly how to explain what it was. So yeah I do remember it. And you know one thing about Manton: He is so dedicated, almost to the point of stubbornness, which is fantastic. It’s fantastic for developers so he kept working on it and has kept as he kept working on it. I started to understand and he started to be able to hone in on his messaging on exactly what it was. And so it’s clear obviously now but back then it wasn’t quite so obvious. I do remember and he’s been working on for a lot longer than some people realise, I know.

@macgenie: I know what you mean, though, about what does it do and how does it work because I feel like I’m only now really appreciating it and it’s taken over a year of working with Manton and seeing how people use it and how it’s evolved, because it’s so different from anything else that’s out there, really. I think it defies being defined very specifically until it becomes what it is.

@cheesemaker: Right. And you see that a lot too with new users right. When they start using it, they’ll get into the timeline and they’ll start sort of using this in similar ways that they use Twitter. And that’s why I really am proud of the work that we’ve done both with Sunlit and now with Wavelength. It demonstrates that it’s more than just talking and and chatting. It’s a real platform for taking back the web, taking back the Internet. And I just really like that.

@macgenie: So tell me about your blogging history: Did you have a blog all along before Micro.blog?

@cheesemaker: So the very first blog I ever had was back in the early 2000s which is when a lot of folks started doing it. I did a lot a lot of developers did in the early 2000s which was “Oh I’m going to roll my own blog software!” And I was not very good at it. I wish I still had the source from that original blog. So I post from time to time. I have way too many posts on my longer form blog that are sort of in the form of “Oh, it’s been six months since I posted.”

@macgenie: I know that feeling. If you did a search for that phrase online you would get all these blogs.

@cheesemaker: Oh yeah. It’s a graveyard of good intentions.

@macgenie: I think we’ve kind of covered this in some of the other questions but maybe if you have something else to add about what do you like about Micro.blog…

@cheesemaker: Yeah. I touched on it a little bit earlier, which is I think folks are just starting to understand the power of the platform. You know, Wavelength will have been out for a few days by the time folks are listening. And I don’t know when Manton first started talking to you about it. But we wrote Wavelength in an incredibly short amount of time not because we cut corners or anything, but because the Micro.blog platform just gave us such a lead, a running head start. And I’m really excited to see what people start doing with both Sunlit and Wavelength and I’m really excited to see what other people can start doing with the platform. I’ve been thinking about photos for a lot longer than I have podcasts. Manton and I have put probably years into the development of Sunlit, nd so I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about what that means. Podcasts, it’s a much much newer format for me as a developer. So I’m really curious to see where Wavelength goes.

@macgenie: Do you have any ideas for your own microcast?

@cheesemaker: I’m very jealous of Manton’s Timetable, his near daily podcast. I know myself well enough to know that if I said I’m going to do this, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep it up for all that long, and it would end up with another one of those “Oh it’s been six months since I recorded.”.

@macgenie: Back in the graveyard of good intentions in podcasting!

@cheesemaker: Exactly. Exactly. I think if I’m going to actually try to get into a regular podcast, I need to sit down and make a better plan for myself, maybe potential topics and a schedule and so we’ll see.

@macgenie: Don’t you have any pets?

@cheesemaker: I do have a pet! I have a pug. She is so adorable. Her name is Olive.

@macgenie: There’s your microcast. It could be about a short topic. What did Olive do this week? I would follow that one.

@cheesemaker: Maybe I will do that. It’s not a bad idea.

@macgenie: I feel like we all have to start somewhere. I will shamelessly plug my new guinea pig broadcast. I never thought I would say those words my life. But yeah, because I had to test something and I had these obvious test subjects. I think everybody who is interested in podcasting at all, don’t be afraid to start really small because this is Micro.blog and this is a microcast that we’re talking about. Well Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to come and to chat with me on Wavelength launch day.

@cheesemaker: Glad to do it.

@macgenie: Thanks to everybody for listening to the Micro Monday Microcast this week. And we’ll talk to you all next week. Bye for now.

Episode 6: @cheesemaker

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 06:13:40 -0700

Jonathan Hays joins Jean to talk about Sunlit and Wavelength for Micro.blog, how he met Manton, and what makes Micro.blog a unique platform.

Episode 5: Transcript

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 07:00:00 -0700

Guest: @kitt

Release date: April 9, 2018

@macgenie: 00:00:00 Hey it’s Micro Monday again, the microcast where we get to know members of the Micro.blog community. I’m Jean MacDonald, Community Manager at Micro.blog. And I’m really pleased to welcome Kitt Hodsden, also known as @kitt, K-I-T-T. on Micro.blog. Hey Kitt, how are you doing?

@kitt: 00:00:20 Hi Jean. I’m fantastic. I’m so excited.

@macgenie: 00:00:23 Me too. This is so exciting. I’m loving this podcast and talking to so many interesting people like yourself. In fact, why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

@kitt: 00:00:36 Jean, I find introductions are incredibly fascinating because they always tell an audience what a person finds most important about themselves. Like when you write a new bio on Micro.blog, it’s what do you want to include in order to find people to connect with. Well, all right, here goes. I’m a software developer. I live in Portland, Oregon. Not many people know that.

@macgenie: 00:00:56 I did not know that!

@kitt: 00:00:58 I used to work at Apple, I worked at Twitter and I worked at Shopify. I used to live down in the San Francisco South Bay and I cofounded Hacker Dojo which is a coworking creative space down there. I’m an avid reader. I really like notebooks and I love playing ultimate frisbee. How’s that?

@macgenie: 00:01:16 That’s awesome. That’s really good. A well-rounded bio. So how did you hear about Micro.blog?

@kitt: 00:01:24 I really wish I could recall where I heard about Micro.blog.

@macgenie: 00:01:32 It’s not important if you can’t remember.

@kitt: 00:01:32 The funny thing to me is that I didn’t hear about it when it was on Kickstarter, because I’m a huge Kickstarter fan. Like I’ve backed over 700 projects on Kickstarter. So for me not to have heard about it on Kickstarter is really really weird. But when I did hear about it last June, I signed up for the mailing list and as soon as the invites went out in November, I was like, “Sign me up!”

@macgenie: 00:01:54 Well I’m glad that you did find it and signed up with us because I just love having you as a member of the Micro.blog community…

@kitt: 00:02:05 Blushing…

@macgenie: 00:02:06 …and now I get to talk to you in person.

@kitt: 00:02:10 Still blushing…

@macgenie: 00:02:14 Did you have a blog before Micro.blog?

@kitt: 00:02:16 I did. I have had my personal blog, Nags of a Similar Ilk, for about 14 years, and about two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, I decided to stop posting to it. I recently lost a server there, a lot of the images and a bunch of the content on it, and I figured well, that seems like a good time to stop. I’m really excited about Micro.blog and blogging there, so I thought this is a good time to stop. We’ll see if it sticks.

@macgenie: 00:02:50 So what are you doing with your microblog that you started through Micro.blog?

@kitt: 00:02:57 A couple of years ago, I stopped using Twitter aggressively. I was looking for another social network to become involved in. I really like the images of Instagram but I’m so not a fan of Facebook and I never have been and so I’ve been reluctant to go all in on Instagram. I feel that Micro.blog fills the need for community for me in a way that early Twitter did, and the way that I really wanted Instagram to do when I had stopped using Twitter so much. So I’m using Micro.blog as a place to, on a personal level, jot down thoughts and post pictures and tell stories about things going on in my life. But more important to me is to be able to reach out to other people and see how they’re doing and where I can help. If we’re all lucky in the end of this, we build a community within Micro.blog that’s this welcoming part of the Internet that spills over into the real world. So yeah I’m using my good ol’ blog as a way to meet people and find people interesting.

@macgenie: 00:04:01 Yeah I hear you. I’ve definitely been using it that way as well and I used to be all in on Twitter. When I first joined, I just thought it was the neatest thing and I made a lot of friends, right?

@kitt: 00:04:19 Oh yeah. There are so many people like my boyfriend. I met him through Twitter.

@macgenie: 00:04:25 Really?

@kitt: 00:04:27 Twitter is an amazing place. And then it wasn’t.

@macgenie: 00:04:32 Yeah it’s a shame because I did love it so, I have to admit. And then, as you said, until it wasn’t. And it’s been a while since I’ve been really excited about Twitter. Definitely when I saw that Manton was going public with this project that I knew that he was working on, I was excited about that, and that there was an opportunity to work with him, that was particularly exciting to me as well, because I’ve known him for a while in the developer community. I like his work and he’s a good person to work with, as you can imagine.

@kitt: 00:05:14 I can imagine. I am looking forward to when he can breathe for a moment and decide how the rest of us can help with the site and the network and all that stuff.

@macgenie: 00:05:22 So I think having a community, and as you say, the notion that we would spill over into the Internet in general and be a force for acceptance and tolerance, and good manners.

@kitt: 00:05:40 Communities define themselves, so I feel that as long as we’re all in this together and we all work towards having something that is a welcoming community, we’ll get there.

@macgenie: 00:05:50 You’re pretty much answering at least one answer to the last question which is: What do you like Micro.blog ?

@kitt: 00:05:56 Oh definitely the community. I really really love how not only we’re establishing a new community but how other communities are re-establishing themselves on Micro.blog. I see it frequently with the “Oh good to see you here too” posts. I just love that because they’re different and they’re growing. And all of the interest that people have. Like I’m excited about paper and notebooks, but I would never have tried a fountain pen without hearing about all of the conversations happening on Micro.blog. Like hedgehogs and guinea pigs are totally new to me. I had no experience on these and then suddenly there’s all these pictures I’m like “Wait a second. Those are adorable.

@macgenie: 00:06:39 Yes, they are officially the world’s cutest little pet I think. Guinea Pigs. Anyway I can’t really speak to hedgehogs. I’ve only seen them a couple of times and I’ve seen videos of them but I haven’t actually had one. But I do like guinea pigs. A lot, as you have noticed!

@kitt: 00:07:00 Are the difficult to take care of?

@macgenie: 00:07:04 No, they’re pretty easy to keep but they aren’t simple. There’s a definite misunderstanding, I think, in the world at large, that guinea pigs can be “starter pets” because they’re little. But they have very specific needs for diet and vitamins, and a certain size cag, and you how you hold them is important. They don’t have those treadmills like hamsters have, because their bodies don’t do that. They’re like bricks with little legs and so they’re not really very flexible. You can’t just hold them up in mid air and expect that not to get injured. So guess it’s easier maybe than taking care of a cat or dog because somebody can come in and feed your guinea pigs while you’re away. You’re supposed to have two at least two. One guinea pig is a little sad because they’re very social animals. So if you have two guinea pigs and you go away, I think they consider it a vacation for them. I always felt bad in the beginning I thought, “Oh I’m leaving the guinea pigs on their own for two days,” and then eventually I realized: they jump every time I come into the room. They’re always on alert for predators. And if they had two days with nobody walking around their cage, they’d probably enjoy that.

@kitt: 00:08:46 The things I did not know. Yay, Micro.blog!

@macgenie: 00:08:52 It will not be a microcast if you get me going on guinea pigs. I should stop. But I will say that’s my next mini micro blog project, to just start putting the guinea pigs into their own feed.

@kitt: 00:09:09 I’m resisting having a million microblog.

@macgenie: 00:09:12 It’s hard.

@kitt: 00:09:14 Oh, it is hard.

@macgenie: 00:09:15 So I will say that what I really like about Micro.blog is a chance to meet new people like you. I’m really glad you could come on to the microcast and tell us a little bit about you and about what you’re doing on Micro.blog. I’m sure that a lot of folks will be happy to have the chance to get to know you a little better.

@kitt: 00:09:37 Thanks for having me. I’m excited.

@macgenie: 00:09:39 Thanks to everybody for listening. We’ll talk to you next week.

Episode 5: @kitt

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 07:39:41 -0700

This week, @kitt joins the microcast to talk with Jean about her blog, discovering new people and topics on Micro.blog, and what makes the community special.

Episode 4: Transcript

Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:57:17 -0700

Guest: @patrickrhone

Release date: April 2, 2018

macgenie: 00:00:11 Hey it’s Micro Monday again, the weekly microcast where we get to know members of the Micro.blog community. I’m Jean MacDonald, community manager here at Micro.blog, and I am very happy to welcome Patrick Rhone to the podcast, also known on my Micro.blog as @patrickrhone.

patrickrhone: 00:00:31 I’m Patrick Rhone everywhere. I find it’s so much easier because it cuts through all the explanation. Just get right to it. Who are you? I’m Patrick Rhone.

macgenie: 00:00:42 It’s handy. Unfortunately for me, I picked my handle back 10 plus years ago when I thought it might be important not to have my name out there in social media, because it was new and I was a little afraid of it.

patrickrhone: 00:00:59 Understood.

macgenie: 00:01:00 Let’s us get right into it and talk about Micro.blog. I’d love to know how you heard about Micro.blog.

patrickrhone: 00:01:10 Strangely enough, I probably heard about it on Twitter but I don’t know. It’s one of those things. I never remember where I hear about things from. This is the reason why there is such a lack of “via”s and hat tips on my site. It’s like I have no idea where this thing came from, it just showed up, you know? And now, thinking back on it, it might have been Andy Baio’s Waxy.org, which is a long running…, I would call that a microblog even though I don’t know if he’s on Micro.blog. But yeah somewhere on the interwebs.

patrickrhone: 00:01:52 Oh, there’s a Kickstarter for this thing, and this thing looks a lot like something that I’ve either A) wanted to do for a while or B) actually have set up already in some way, shape, or form. Let’s see how this will turn out.

macgenie: 00:02:08 That’s true. It is part of the interwebs, and not surprising at all if you heard about it on Twitter. I know that Twitter, love it or hate it, it has been my source of news on things like Micro.blog for a long time.

patrickrhone: 00:02:25 There’s a lot of things, certain websites that I’ve long followed for stuff like this, whether it be Boing Boing, or Waxy.org, or Kottke, which tend to link to interesting things like this. I saw the Kickstarter, and said sign me up. Forked over some money.

macgenie: 00:02:53 We appreciate that support for sure, and I would love to know how you’re using your microblog, which is patrickrhone.micro.blog.

patrickrhone: 00:03:07 Well, there is that, but actually my true microblog and what’s actually connected to Micro.blog is patrickrhone.net. And patrickrhone.net is, as of say last December or so, my full-time blog. That’s where I blog everything, after having blogged for almost 15 years at patrickrhone.com. And there’s probably some people asking at this point , “Wait, why why did you do this new thing?” I’ll try to make some very long stories short.

patrickrhone: 00:04:07 Essentially know I had patrickrhone.com for many many years. I decided to take an online sabbatical for a year that actually lasted about 9 months, not quite. The intent was to take a step back from online publishing. I’m a writer. I’ve written six books. I’ve been blogging for 15 years but I was writing long before this thing called the internet was something that a normal person could publish to. As a matter of fact, I’ve been writing long before this thing called the Internet actually really existed, because I’m an old guy. So part of my interest in that was trying to see how much has the ability to publish anything anytime I want, how has that changed my writing, and what happens if I remove that. As a creative person, I’m always interested in playing around with constraints. As a history buff, I’m always interested to find out what it would be like to go back and take away those things, those tools that we now have that make things easy. What was it like before that? And so that’s what I did. During that time and what caused me to come back was I had a fairly serious personal events happen over the course of that year that led me to have a sense, a need for the community that the Internet provides and that I missed.

patrickrhone: 00:06:06 At that time I thought, “You know, with patrickrhone.com, I’ve gotten stuck in this loop, this feeling like I’ve got to publish these 500-1000 word essays, and that they have to have this kind of structure to them. And I realized, in my time away, how limiting that was. And so I set up patrickrhone.net just really as an experiment. My idea was: when I do come back, I’m not going to publish directly to Twitter. I’m not going to publish directly to Facebook. I’m tired of this idea of just throwing stuff out there that then just goes into the wind and doesn’t belong to me. There’s no way to really go back and look at it over time in conjunction and contrast with other things I’m writing and to see how these tweets are, these Facebook posts or whatever (I never really was into Facebook, so I should stop just pretending like I was posting there when I wasn’t). But you know, see how these things fit in with all of these other things like my longer form blog posts. And hey, I’ve got these shorter ideas that I want to post, maybe between 100 and 500 words and I want a space where that feels comfortable. And so I made patrickrhone.net. And this is before I really heard about Micro.blog and that it was going to be integrating, or I would say embracing, WordPress connectivity and all that. I had no idea; I had just backed the Kickstarter and I really hadn’t fallen its development much.

patrickrhone: 00:07:56 And so I actually built what is essentially a microblog at patrickrhone.net, with the intention that I would publish here and that that stuff would get fed via IFTTT out to Twitter or in the case of Instagram, which doesn’t let you post things into it, I set it up so that anything I post Instagram fed via I FTTT to into my blog, so at least I’d have my own copy of it. So I essentially set up this microblog of my own outside of Micro.blog and was very happy and relieved that when Micro.blog finally was released, at to least the Kickstarter backers, that hey, if you’ve got a Wordpress hosted site, you can hook it up and let that be your your Micro.blog. And I was like “Duh, this is what I want. This is what I’ve already built it and I can hook it up and this is great. And so now I kind of have a vision for how I will use this. So that’s a long way of answering actually two standard questions that you ask which is: did you have a blog beforehand? The answer is yes, I had several. And how did you end up here.

macgenie: 00:09:38 That was an excellent job of explaining how microblogging fits into your writing life because you were doing it before Micro.blog actually yes launched. And it was a happy…um, well it wasn’t a coincidence because Manton definitely had this notion that microblogging and Micro.blog had to work really well with the existing independent web.

patrickrhone: 00:10:06 Yes, and that gets to the other question, which is: what do I like about it? See I’m doing your thing for you, Jean! I’m sorry.

macgenie: 00:10:12 I love this! I’ll go get a coffee. You keep going.

patrickrhone: 00:10:16 (Laughs) That’s one of the things I love about it and certainly one of the things I thought very deeply about during my time away from the web. It was essentially: OK, if I were come back to it fresh, thinking about how I would go about doing things today, given the tools that are out there and what we know now, given how social networks work and stuff like that, how would I approach this? And yes I love the idea that Micro.blog is essentially just built on top of the independent web that is already there, and is embracing it, saying, “Hey, we’ll certainly give you your own kind of “post once syndicate elsewhere” experience here, and we’ll even host your little microblog for you. That’s our business model and it’s how we’ll make a little money. But if you’ve already got something and you’re independent and you’re happy with that? We’re going to support that too.” And I love that. I just love that. There’s something I like to call “philosophy.txt”.

patrickrhone: 00:11:46 You know how back in the old days of software, you’d download some program and it always came with a couple of text files. One of those text files was generally a ReadMe.txt. ReadMe, that was something you’d want to read that first, it would describe how to install it, and what it is, and maybe some special features, and probably give you the version history. But almost all software also comes with what I like to call a “philosophy . txt”. Even though it’s not included in the package. But it’s very evident once you start using something, you can immediately see the philosophy behind what went into this development: by the choices they they have made, by the features they have included and the features they have left out, by the way that those features that there are included work, by the sensible defaults that they have built in, by the insensible defaults they have built. And that will give you an overview of the “philosophy.txt” that should have been included with the software. In my humble opinion, I would love to see that with more software. I would love to see an actual “philosophy.txt” from the developer that says “Hey, this is why I made this. This is why this works this way. These are the choices I made. And this is the philosophy behind it.” Manton seemed very upfront with a philosophy . txt of here’s what this is; here’s why I’m building it; here’s why it’s got these features; any other feature requests will be weighed against this philosophy.txt.

[00:13:28] That’s why we never see direct messages in Micro.blog. Makes perfect sense to me right. Because I can’t see a way to make direct messages fit into the philosophy.txt of Micro.blog. I can’t figure out a way to have that be something that is built on top of and supporting the independent web, and the protocols and the technologies that already exist out there. So all of that’s a roundabout way of saying that you know what I like about Micro.blog? Number 1 is the philosophy.txt. Number 2 is community. I think that what this essentially is doing is building a community of bloggers. A community of small independent bloggers, one that really hasn’t existed officially before. A place for them to get together, a place for them to have conversations. A place for them to essentially comment on each other’s posts. In many ways I look at Micro.blog as a as a separate independent commenting system that you don’t have to host on your own site, and thus don’t have to constantly fight spam and trolls. Which is a fantastic thing.

macgenie: 00:14:54 It’s something I’ve had to get my mind around, even after I signed on to work with Manton, was how different it is than what exists currently and you’ve identified the two things you know that really make it special. The independent nature of it, but also the community. Now somebody could have a microblog and not participate in the community at all. We never have to use the apps or the timeline or anything like that. And that’s also fine. But now I’m going to be thinking about it as you described it, a little bit like an interesting commenting channel. And there is there’s a lot of back and forth among the timeline and people who are posting there. I really like that. And I also like that I’m meeting people such as yourself and everybody else actually who I’ve been interviewing. I’ve made it a point to interview people I don’t actually know.

patrickrhone: 00:16:02 OK that’s cool.

macgenie: 00:16:03 So until I’m in a pinch and then I have a few friends who are obsessive podcast e r types who I know I can get any time and they’re happy to do it. But so far so good. But that’s Micro.blog to me, that it’s a different community. I think if I had if I had been successful in getting a lot of people from Twitter to come over, people who I already follow, I might not have had the space, mentally or in the timeline, to appreciate new people and new points of view. Also it’s very visual. I like that it’s it feels like kind of a combo of Instagram and Twitter together.

patrickrhone: 00:16:54 And I will say since Micro.blog, I’ve actually turned off the smaller forum things that were going to Twitter. In fact the only thing now that updates my Twitter timeline is things that are basically category=”post” on my blog. Everything else that’s just a status or just a photo, or photo with commentary, those things only go to Micro.blog. Otherwise they’re on my microblog. They’re not going to Twitter. They’re not going Instagram. They’re not going anywhere else.

[00:17:54] And I’ve stopped posting Instagram. I mean quite frankly Micro.blog iOS app is the absolute easiest quickest way for me to publish my Wordpress-based site. So even if I didn’t participate Micro.blog, I’d like the app just for that, because the other solutions are all crap (for lack of a better term) or just fiddly or whatever. You know Micro.blog the app makes it dead simple to type a post.

macgenie: 00:18:34 Well, we could go on here forever. I’m so interested in all the things you do and write about. Your books: I own the one on meditation and I love that. I was looking at your site and thinking, “Uh-oh I think I’m gonna order this one, and this one… Patrick, We need a bundle. You need the Patrick Rhone bundle.

patrickrhone: 00:19:00 That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I should put that together.

macgenie: 00:19:04 Trust me I’m a marketing geek. One button is better than six or more.

patrickrhone: 00:19:08 For what it’s worth about the meditation book, I view that as my most important little piece of work, even though it’s a short quick little guide, it’s not very long. Those guides are living documents. I mean, ebooks are software. I don’t know why we don’t treat them like things that you shouldn’t publish updates to, things that come with like a changelog.txt.

macgenie: 00:19:47 That’s true. Well yes I’m going to encourage everybody to go buy them. What’s the best? It’s still patrickrhone.com though to find those ebooks, or I assume patrickrhone.net will get you there?

patrickrhone: 00:20:00 Yes that is correct.

macgenie: 00:20:01 I think we could wrap could wrap it up there. Otherwise I’ll just go on and on.

patrickrhone: 00:20:08 Thank you very much.

macgenie: 00:20:11 Thank you Patrick for coming on to Micro Monday. And I will see everybody with a new guest next week. Thanks.

Episode 4: @patrickrhone

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 12:59:19 -0700

Jean talks with Patrick Rhone about web sites that link to interesting things, taking an online sabbatical, how he uses a microblog, and why all software should have a philosophy.txt file.

Episode 3: Transcript

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 08:08:20 -0700

Guest: @kimonostereo

Release date: March 26, 2018

macgenie: 00:00:12 Hey, it’s Micro Monday again, the weekly microcast where we get to know members of the Micro.blog community. I’m Jean MacDonald the community manager at Micro.blog, and I’m so pleased to have on the show Scott Yoshinaga, also known as @kimonostereo.

kimonostereo: 00:00:31 Hey.

macgenie: 00:00:32 Hey Scott! So we have the Micro.blog microcast questions and I’m going to pose them to you because I’m really interested to hear about your experience at Micro.blog, starting with: How did you hear about Micro.blog?

kimonostereo: 00:00:50 I think I heard about it first when Manton was doing his Kickstarter, through John Gruber. And I kind of I liked it but I couldn’t quite figure out how this was going to work. So I put it in the back of my mind. Then, after the Kickstarter had completed, Mr. Gruber used it, and I guess he cross posted it to Twitter, something about sports and I took a look at it. I thought, “Hey it’s this Micro.blog thing. Let’s check out what that’s all about.” And at that time you still couldn’t sign up for it, unless you were a Kickstarter participant. But there was a little e-mail box to sign up if you wanted to be notified when it was open to other people coming in. So I did that and I think I got my invitation right before I took a trip to Japan for vacation. So I signed up for my account.

kimonostereo: 00:01:57 And it was at the time, I am on the airplane, thinking about this thing and I’m like, “Hey what I’m reading is correct, I can do this from my own blog, which I used to do a lot of. That might be more fun than just using the straight Micro.blog. So when I get back, let me figure out how to you know how to make that all work.” And so that’s what I did. I ended up digging up my Moveable Type blog and trying to figure out how to hook it up to Micro.blog, and the rest is history because now that day I figured it out, I’ve been posting regularly and it’s been a lot of fun.

macgenie: 00:02:41 That leads to my next question which is: How are you using your microblog?

kimonostereo: 00:02:51 First thing is, I’ve wanted to blog again. I wanted to do more writing but getting into it was kind of a major pain point for me because I want to make the blog look nice and all of that stuff. But I decided to just jump in on it and just see what the community was about. It’s mostly to get a feel of how this whole system was working and now that I’m in it, it’s been really interesting to see just the different people that are on it. It really feels like early Twitter days, I guess, like right when Twitter started. You can see everyone’s @ replies, anyone that you’re following and you just discover a whole lot of different characters that are out there. And there’s not so much of what’s currently on Twitter now, which is mostly retweets and marketing stuff. So I’ve been using it just to meet other people online that are doing the same thing and seeing what they’re what they’re using it for. I’m planning to write some longer posts, once I get my blog up and running the way I wanted to.

macgenie: 00:04:16 It’s a really good point about Twitter and how it felt in the beginning. And like you said, we could see everybody’s replies.

kimonostereo: 00:04:25 That was a big thing.

macgenie: 00:04:27 I remember when they changed it and people were like, “But, but, how will I find people to follow?”

kimonostereo: 00:04:35 Exactly. I still remember that day. We’re kind of dumbfounded at that change. You know, I have this love/hate thing with Twitter. This past winter, I completely dropped out of Facebook. I just decided to quit. So I just stop going there. The only way can manage Twitter today is by using lists and I use Twitter less for various different things that I’m interested in, but it’s nowhere near as interesting as Micro.blog is.

macgenie: 00:05:10 The third question we have is: Did you have a blog before Micro.blog?

kimonostereo: 00:05:15 I was blogging way back in 2002, I think, and that was one of the earlier versions of Movable Type. I remember that making a blog was something so new, noone understood what it was, it was like the beginning stages, I guess, of social media where you would post, I don’t know about anybody else, but I had on my sidebar what I’m listening to and what I’m watching and what I’m reading and my top 10 favorite CDs. (If you remember CDs!) And then when other people started having blogs, I had a blog roll.

macgenie: 00:05:58 Blog roll! I forgot about that!

kimonostereo: 00:06:01 Those were the days, right? And it’s interesting to see how everything turned into a silo, for example there was Live Journal and then it was MySpace, and then it was Facebook and Twitter. And instead of writing for yourself and owning that content, you started creating on other people’s platforms. I just lost interest in doing that part, the writing part, you just stop thinking about doing it and then you forget that you used to do that before, where you actually put some thought into what you’re writing about, and you had a topic, and all those other things. It’s kind of neat that Micro.blog lets you do both. You can have the the social side, and if you wanted to do some thought pieces, you could also do that at the same time. But aside from that, when I got married, my wife and I started a webcomic called Nemu-Nemu, and we used that as a nother kind of blogging in itself, publishing a webcomic via a CMS and talking about the creative process and how we come up with ideas and sharing those ideas with other people. Now we’ve been blogging for a very long time and this is just another good way to get back into it .

macgenie: 00:07:39 So Nemu-Nemu is the website where people can find the comic ?

kimonostereo: 00:07:48 Yeah, the comic is Nemu-Nemu.com. And that’s me and my wife. We do that. She’s the artist and I helped her do the writing and the website and all that other stuff.

macgenie: 00:07:59 That’s quite an undertaking, I imagine.

kimonostereo: 00:08:02 Yeah it’s it’s been a labor of love. We’re currently on hiatus. But you know, we’re always working on new ideas, so hopefully fairly soon we’ll have another good comic idea come out.

macgenie: 00:08:18 Well, is there anything else you’d like to add? We have talked a bit about what you like about Micro.blog, which is the last question, but if there was something you wanted to add to that, let me know.

kimonostereo: 00:08:31 I’m just really interested in seeing how this platform grows. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next. Because as platforms grow, usually things tend to get harder for the community in general because there’s so much weight. But I don’t know, we’ll see. Everyday I see new people being introduced and the Discover page is just great to find new people. So I’m just glad that you guys have this community for me to play around in.

macgenie: 00:09:12 Oh, great! I’m so glad you’re there and I really have enjoyed your posts. And of course I’ve enjoyed chatting with you today for the Micro.blog Microcast. So let’s wrap it up here and we will talk to you all next week. Thanks for being here Scott.

kimonostereo: 00:09:33 Thank you for having me.

Episode 3: @kimonostereo

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 06:12:31 -0700

For our third episode, Jean MacDonald talks to @kimonostereo about discovering Micro.blog, differences with Twitter, the old days of blogging, and creating a web comic.

Episode 2: Transcript

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 09:50:55 -0700

Guest: @modernlittleme

Release date: March 19, 2018

@macgenie: 00:00:12 Hey, it’s Micro Monday again, the weekly microcast where we get to know members of the Micro.blog community. I’m Jean MacDonald, Community Manager at Micro.blog. And today I’m with Christine Lane who is also known as @modernlittleme on Micro.blog. Hey Christine, welcome to the podcast.

@modernlittleme: 00:00:32 Hi there. Thanks for having me. I’m excited about this.

@macgenie: 00:00:35 One funny thing I noticed about doing this podcast is that, until I emailed you to ask you to be a guest, I didn’t even know your first name or last name.

@modernlittleme: 00:00:46 I know. It occurs to me that I don’t think I have it on there. I think I signed up all incognito and then got into it more than I thought I would.

@macgenie: 00:00:57 Let’s hear about your your experiences with Micro.blog. First off, tell me: how did you first hear about Micro.blog?

@modernlittleme: 00:01:06 I actually heard about it from my husband who was a part of the Kickstarter campaign. Although he hasn’t been on there recently, he came out strong and then disappeared for a little while there. But I expect him to be back.

@macgenie: 00:01:20 Yeah I think that’s not an unusual situation for a lot of people, myself included, because it’s a new platform, it’s a new system, it is not like anything that’s being done elsewhere. So getting the hang of it for yourself is a process. It’s not going to happen overnight.

@modernlittleme: 00:01:42 No, it definitely doesn’t.

@macgenie: 00:01:45 Now, what are you doing with your microblog? What are you primarily using it for?

@modernlittleme: 00:01:56 Well I joined Micro.blog as a way to start writing more, again just kind of collecting all those thoughts that would flip through my head but I wouldn’t write them down, like physically tangibly write them down. And I was like, “Well, hey, this might be a great way to write them down and not forget them and revisit them later. But now really I’m just using it as a way to kind of track life, as simple as that. I don’t post on Facebook, I don’t post on Twitter. I want to own my thoughts, I don’t want somebody else to own them. I guess that’s basically it, just random little snippets of life that I don’t want to forget. Whether it’s something the kids did, or something that I saw, or just a great moment when I was teaching, or something as minor as “Hey, I did it.”

@macgenie: 00:02:49 Right. Well, you have a lot of you have a lot of interests and hobbies and skills. I think you have a lot of material to work with. You’re a knitter, right? Am I right about that or is it some other craft?

@modernlittleme: 00:03:07 Quilter. I’m a quilter and a sometimes knitter, but more a quilter right now. I’m a sewist.

@macgenie: 00:03:18 You’re a sew-er?

@modernlittleme: 00:03:18 Yeah, I call it sewist.

@macgenie: 00:03:19 Oh that’s a good word for it. And of course you have kids who are totally adorable and I love when you post photos of them. And you have a hedgehog.

@modernlittleme: 00:03:32 We have a menagerie, yes. We have a greyhound rescue. My oldest son has a bearded dragon and I have a hedgehog. So I’m aiming to have a zoo at some point in my life. At the very least, a menagerie.

@modernlittleme: 00:03:56 Did you have a blog before you started at Micro.blog? Or do you actually have another blog now as well?

@modernlittleme: 00:04:06 So I’m all over the map on this one. So I started a blog, it would have been 10 years last month, of our adoption journey to our first son. So that was in 2008. I started just kind of chronicling that whole journey to South Korea and back again.Then I would blog about life with him after he came home. And then we did our second journey with the younger one. Again I blogged about the journey, but then after he came home, it got a little weird to just keep writing about my kids. The oldest one knew at that point what was going on and was starting to skew. You know. like “Don’t post about that,” or “You should post about that.” It wasn’t as sweet and innocent anymore. And simultaneously during the adoption of our second son, I was blogging on a parenting blog called Hellobee. So I have those blogs, and then I had my modern little me blog that I wasn’t doing anything with. There was no motivation and that’s when I made the decision to join Micro.blog and try to get that groove back . I don’t know if you’ve ever suffered that, but all of a sudden you’re like “I don’t know what to write.” Writer’s block in the extreme.

@macgenie: 00:05:38 It is hard to keep up that level of content producing, even if you don’t do it a lot, but just to do it consistently and feel inspired consistently. At least with Micro.blog, I can post a couple sentences every day if I want to. And I get something on paper, as it were, not actual paper obviously, and the I love the fact that while I’m in the app posting things as if I were on Twitter, I’m getting an actual blog out of that process, instead of just a Twitter timeline that I would never send anybody to. So what do you like about Micro.blog? Is there anything you haven’t mentioned so far that you’d like to add, before we wrap this up?

@modernlittleme: 00:06:34 I think the key is just the ownership. Own your stuff. I’m trying to get back to blogging and owning that as well. And I’d probably do it all through Micro.blog if I could figure out how to make it look pretty. I don’t have that skill set. I’ll eventually merge those two things together a bit better. I really enjoy that there’s an anonymity to the follower counts, like you don’t know how many people or who they are. I know that’s a debate on Micro.blog. I like that because the reason I got into it was not for an audience. It was really kind of an online journal for myself. I have connected there to people who either are geographically close to me or have similar interests, usually in the photography scene or just in the parenting world. I haven’t found another sewist yet, maybe I’m missing somebody. I just like that it’s a more naturally organically growing community.

@macgenie: 00:07:53 I like it too. I didn’t like it in the beginning because I was heavily steeped in Twitter. And when when we launched the platform every day, I would be askingk Manton questions: “How are we going to know who is following us? How are we going to find people? How are we going to do this, that and the other thing?” My mantra now is, “Manton knows what he’s doing. You trust Manton’s judgment. If you wanted it to be just like Twitter, why are you here?” So yeah, I totally drank the Manton koolaid as I sometimes say.

@modernlittleme: 00:08:42 Exactly. Just like no hashtags.

@macgenie: 00:08:52 I don’t know if you’ll agree with this, but I have started taking all my photos in square format, unless it’s something that absolutely doesn’t fit, because I agree with Manton that it looks better in the app if your photos are square. But that bugged me and I know it bugs a lot of people. There are ways to have to avoid having your photos cropped as square in Micro.blog. But I was like you know what? It’s a limitation and that’s a thing that you want in art, to work within the limitation.

@modernlittleme: 00:09:32 I think I had crossed that bridge of being square-format-adverse well before I came into the Micro.blog community so to me it was something I had already worked through. As a photographer, I liked to have a wide range of options. But I agree. The square format, especially when you’re scrolling through something, it just appeals to me aesthetically and you know what? Sometimes I have it as a horizontal. Sometimes I have it as a a vertical and then I drop it and post it. I still have the originals wherever they might be, on my camera or on my phone.

@macgenie: 00:10:14 That’s true. Well I thank you so much for coming on, for being the first guest in this podcast series, and I’m really glad we had this chance to talk. I’m really glad we had a time limit because really, I could stay on the phone with you all day now, talk about photos and, of course, guinea pigs. We didn’t even MENTION them, on purpose.

@modernlittleme: 00:10:39 Otherwise it would be like the huge long, not-microcast.

@macgenie: 00:10:44 That’s right. So thanks again and thanks to everybody for listening. We’ll talk to you next week.

@modernlittleme: 00:10:51 Thanks so much for having me. I enjoyed it.