I miss those early days when most people I know from blogging, web projects, online biz and related endeavours were on Twitter. Both in Finland and globally. It was so easy to connect and stay connected with everyone.
Fast forward to today, and we are all scattered across various social networks online. Mastodon, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, Tumblr, Bluesky, micro.blog.. and yes, X.
Ugh. Too many places to keep track of, let alone stay active on. ActivityPub certainly is a step in the right direction in this context, but will it ever get adopted widely enough to “solve” this problem?
Soooo.. Threads just launched their web version, cool. Unless you’re in EU region, which I am. Can’t use the app, can’t use the web. Twitter is a mess, left ages ago. STILL no Bluesky invite either (although I joined waiting list last year). Truly feeling like a second class citizen here! 🥲
I've been surprisingly happy in the way this site came together.
However, like it happens nearly every time after I've launched a new thing, this time was no different: I’ve been already thinking about doing it again from a scratch.
During the holiday, I didn’t do much else than enjoy the vacation views & feels and post some stories and photos on Instagram from the trip. Didn’t even bring my laptop with me, holiday well spent!
Having said that, I feel excited to get back to tinkering with this blog again. Unlike social media channels where you have limited options on “making it yours”, on personal websites, the sky is the limit. It’s fun being able to make this thing whatever I want it to be.
Oh, where did we travel?
In addition to travels in Finland (where I’m from), we went to Northern Italy, near a city called Bolzano and from there, continued to Santorini, Greece. First mountain views with nice 20-25 Celsius weather, then full on sunshine, 30 Celsius and those beautiful Santorini views. It was great and I miss those places already!
Ok, but about that blog / website tinkering topic. Here’s what’s been happening.
So, Elon want’s to transform Twitter into “everything app” X (handle all our shopping, banking, messaging, etc.), plant a microchip to our brains, build an AI that understands the universe and then.. when it all goes south, escape to space in a 🚀? 😅🤪
Threads, by Instagram - Could that be the name of the Meta’s answer to Twitter? It might. I’m actually more than mildly excited about this. Especially if it really does have ActivityPub support built in. Instagram userbase suddenly available in Fediverse would be like a.. big bang..or something? 🫨
Well, I did it again. Started a new blog, that is.
Oh wait, that’s not entirely true. It ain’t new, as I’ve used it on and off for micro blogging. But I haven’t used it for longer posts like this one. Oh, and it has fresh coat of paint too!
The site runs on micro.blog, a blogging platform that also has elements of social networking built in. In addition to the micro.blog community itself, it also connects with Fediverse. And you can easily cross-publish to other social networks, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium and more.
Now that I’ve moved around some “furniture”, this place feels more like home. There are few things I’d like to mention about the “making of” this site.
This feels good. I think I should hang out here more. Picture by @timmossholder
Third time’s the charm? 😄 To get better aligned with the whole Fediverse concept, I aliased my Mastodon account (@juhaliikala@me.dm) once more and will be using @juha@juhaliikala.com as my “main Fediverse home” from now until eternity (I hope!). So if you’re wondering why you’re suddenly following this handle, that’s why 😊
Also imported my following list to this instance, so all should be in sync now (or shortly, as the data still propagates).
Testing testing! Substack’s RSS reader seems to pick content for each post from my blog sidebar for some reason. Testing if that glitch continues to happen with this new post 🤔
Ah, so the last thing I used Twitter for is now gone too. Used the search (without Twitter account) for browsing comments on some local Finnish news. So be it. The end.
For many years, it has been my December activity to go through those web/social media accounts that I don’t really use much and “cut out the fat”. It’s always a surprise to realize how many new places I’ve made accounts during the past year (as I like to test new shiny things 😄).
This year, I’d especially like to get the number of my social media accounts as low as possible. Ideally, I would just like to be “present” on my own website/blog and cut out all the rest. I feel that’s not yet entirely viable option, although the #ActivityPub “movement” sure has helped get the ball rolling in that direction.
Let’s see! At least, there’s this one “bird account” that I very much think will get flushed by the end of year for me. Probably few others too. Anyone else who’s doing a similar “cleanup” this year?
As micro.blog supports crossposting stuff from here to Mastodon, let’s try that too! Curious to learn how I’ll end up using these two side by side. I guess time and (perhaps) trial and error will tell 😅
Is this thing on? I guess so 😄 In addition to micro.blog(ging), I’m now also exploring what Mastodon is all about @juhaliikala@masto.io. Come say hi! 😊👋
So, I did went the route of deactivating my Twitter account a week ago, but following this good advice from @thedragstate@aus.social, decided to reactivate and just lock it. Let it rot. In the meanwhile, I guess I’ll find a Mastodon instance next OR create my own. Let’s see :)
Yeah, it’s time. Gone fishing is now in effect. Been mulling over the though way before the “latest developments”, but as the feeling has only grown stronger since, it is time. Let’s reconsider at some point, maybe.
I find that micro.blog has the same kind of good vibe Twitter used to have in the early days. Browsing and reading other people’s updates here leave me feeling good. The opposite is true with my Twitter feed, which has turned into (mostly) doom and gloom, people arguing about stupid smallest things and all that. I’ll be spending much more time here than on Twitter in the future, that’s for sure! :)
One thing I’ve wondered lately when discovering new users here, how many active users are there on micro.blog? Just a curiosity, if it’s not a big secret @manton? 😄
Giving a try to “Twitter for Professionals” mode in the app. Could not find software developer, maker or creator “profession” there, so ended up using “Blogger” 😄 Let’s see how this feature turns out! 😆
My first Micro Monday shout-out goes to @amit who’s blog amitgawande.com I just stumbled upon recently. Amit sure has been blogging for a while! Starting from 2005, that’s no small feat! 😄 Amit is also responsible for the beautiful theme I started using on my blog (the same one he uses for his - Paper theme). Minimally beautiful!
Regarding discovering new (micro) blogs, I wonder if there’s a way to see if anyone I follow on Twitter has a blog here? Is there a plug-in or something for that @manton? 😊
No Twitter backup quite yet, so won’t be putting up the “gone fishing sign” today at least 😁 In the meantime, I might just spend some time and tune up micro.blog styles and settings. That should be a good exercise for this evening!
This evening I find myself seriously contemplating the idea of quitting Twitter. OR at least hanging a virtual “gone to fishing, might or might not come back” sign on my profile. 😅
It’s been years since I last enjoyed using the platform. I guess it mostly feels like a distraction today. I certainly use too much screentime on it at least, with very little actual usefulness or value.
Just started the process of getting my tweet archive ready for download. Going to sleep on it and see what the next steps will be once the archive is ready. 🙈
