We’ve entered the second week of the Micro.blog May Challenge Sprints. Last week’s theme was quotations. 💬
This week is photos, each featuring a different color of the rainbow. The first day color is Red, then
📷🌈 #mbmay
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Protest
(This poem was used in Season 5 of Orphan Black as the source of all the episode titles.) 💬 #mbmay
After the success of Microblogvember and the February Photo Challenge, we are ready to challenge you again. Instead of a single month-long focus, we thought it would be fun to break things up with a series of challenge sprints!
Each Monday in May, we’ll kick off a new weeklong challenge sprint. Here are the details:
May 4: Quotations 💬
Inspiring, funny, serious, joyful, famous, made-up: it’s up to you!
Bonus: We’ve just activated the quotation tagmoji as a Discover category.
May 11: Photos: Color-A-Day Challenge 📷
We’ll prompt you each day with the colors of the rainbow, starting with Red.
May 18: Book recommendations 📚
Which are the seven books you most love to share?
May 25: Artwork and drawings 🎨
Show off your own creations, or share someone else’s work.
We are not creating a new pin for this series. But your posts will count toward existing pins, such as:
And if your trying to earn the elusive 30-day Blogger pin, you’ll get very close if you post for 28 days in a row in this challenge.
We’ll post reminders about each day’s challenge, and we’ll also add your entries to the Discover feed. And if you feel the need to use a hashtag: #mbmay
Our announcement of free microcast hosting through April.
I’m looking forward to hearing your voices! I am reactivating @microcaststudio to post tutorials and announcements of new microcasts. I am also planning to do some live online meetups. Let’s have fun with this. 🎙
Day 22 of the Micro.blog February Photoblogging Challenge:“spectacle.” I tripped on these stairs in a dark Austin bar, falling flat and making a spectacle of myself. I don’t seem to have any serious new injuries but 🤦♀️ ugh.
(Day 23: “station.”)
#mbfeb
Day 20 of the Micro.blog February Photoblogging Challenge: “scale.” My rodent of unusual size. ❤️
(Day 21 prompt reminder: “progress.”)
#mbfeb 📷⚖️
Day 13 of the Micro.blog February Photoblogging Challenge (prompt: “rise”) is pretty much over.
The prompt for Day 14 is “warmth.” #mbfeb 🔥📷
If you are cross-posting your photoblogging challenge posts to Twitter, you can include the tag #mbfeb. We’ll be encouraging folks on Twitter to check out Micro.blog and participate, and we’ve extended the free trial period to cover the photoblogging challenge.
Welcome to Day 1 of the February Photoblogging Challenge. Today’s prompt is “open.”
To participate, all you have to do is post a photo that appears in the Micro.blog timeline. It’s helpful if you include the prompt word for Discover, but not required.
I posted the prompts for the February photoblogging challenge, and details about the extended free trial period for Micro.blog so you can invite others to participate. Let me know if you have questions. 🙋♀️🙋🙋♂️📸
The challenge runs from February 1 through March 1, for a total of 30 days. There is a prompt for each day, open to your interpretation. If you post a photo each day during the challenge, you’ll earn a special pin in your Micro.blog account.
We’ve extended the Micro.blog free trial period to coincide with the photoblogging challenge, so invite your friends to register for Micro.blog and join the challenge. Photoblogging is one of the most popular uses of Micro.blog, and a great way to get into a habit of posting.
The photo posts will be added to the Discover timeline and can be viewed in the Discover photos feed as well.
Update: if you include the prompt word with your photo, it will help us adding your posts to the Discover timeline. If you are cross-posting to Twitter, you can include the tag #mbfeb. We’ll be encouraging folks on Twitter to check out Micro.blog and participate, and we’ve extended the free trial period to cover the photoblogging challenge.
(A note about time zones: the prompts are organized by day, not date. In practice, folks in Australia and New Zealand will likely want to post February 2 - March 2. This won’t affect your pin eligibility—we’ve accounted for that.)
Day 1: Open Day 2: Sight Day 3: Reflect Day 4: Spot Day 5: Hide Day 6: Plant Day 7: Above Day 8: Contrast Day 9: Lull Day 10: Sign Day 11: Plain Day 12: Attachment Day 13: Rise Day 14: Warmth Day 15: Balance Day 16: Rest Day 17: Cool Day 18: Oppose Day 19: Space Day 20: Scale Day 21: Progress Day 22: Spectacle Day 23: Station Day 24: Double Day 25: Hurdle Day 26: Escape Day 27: Together Day 28: Below Day 29: Leap Day 30: Vision
The February photoblogging challenge starts in 2 days! The list of prompts will be posted tomorrow.
Do you have friends who would enjoy such a challenge? Invite them to Micro.blog now! We extended the trial period through March 1 for all new accounts to accommodate them. 📸🗓
Reminder: we are running a Micro.blog photoblogging challenge starting February 1. We are working on the prompts, a new pin, and a way to make it easy to invite your friends to join us on Micro.blog and participate. 🎉📸🗓
It’s been a fun podcast week! On the Micro @Monday microcast with Amanda Rush aka @arush, we had a fun discussion about the Indieweb and Micro.blog. And on the new @theweeklyreview, @jamesdempsey and I delved into our childhoods to look at how our parents got things done. 🎙
It’s Micro Monday again (what’s that?). I’m finishing up today’s @monday podcast episode, but in the meantime, I recommend @keinan’s photoblog with fantastic photos of trees, annotated with names, both English and Latin.
I’m looking forward to IndieWeb Camp Austin Feb. 22-23. It’s a great gathering of people who care about personal blogs at all levels of tech expertise.
Also, mark your calendars for Fri., Feb. 21, late afternoon/happy hour Austin Micro Meetup, downtown location TBD. 🎉
PDX area folks: Come hang out with me and @cheesemaker aka Jon Hays Jan. 14 (Tues.) at Migration Brewing on NE Glisan.* We’ll be there at starting at 4 pm. (Check out our Portland Micro meetup preference survey too!)
Afterwards: Core Audio Karaoke!
It’s the first Micro Monday of 2020. Post your suggestion of someone we should follow!
(What is Micro Monday? Glad you asked.)
I am working on today’s episode of the podcast to be posted soon. Another good one! 🥳
One of my 2020 goals, now that I’m mobile again, is to organize and attend more Micro Meetups.
Portlanders: Here is a simple survey to get us started picking a time. No obligation!
I’d be happy to do a morning coffee or lunch AND a happy hour after-work meet up every month.
It’s the last Micro Monday of 2019. (What the heck is Micro Monday?)
I’m working on a special @monday podcast show which I hope to post today.
MM recommendation: a cool video by @handy that gives me some ideas on how to use video screen capture for storytelling.
Another account to check out is @Gabrielcornish, who makes animated pixel art. We don’t include animations in the Discover timeline, but if you like them, you should go have a look at today’s 🎄.
Belated Micro @monday recommendation: @AJgloe, whose Sublime Maps are always eye-opening. Per the bio: “Many beautiful, historical, complex, simple, funny, weird, and shitty maps to see!” There can be a lot of maps in this stream, so be warned.
If you are looking for a way to support Micro.blog, pre-order Indie Microblogging by @manton. Not only does your purchase make a difference, you’ll learn a lot about alternatives to social media and why it’s important to control your content, so you can help spread the word!
We’ve created a Welcome to Micro.blog page. I will share it with new users when they pop up on the timeline. I think it is a good intro to how Micro.blog works. We also created a Community section in the Help where these resources articles are posted.
I’d love your thoughts!
It was surprisingly unnerving to be the guest on my own podcast. Manton interviewed me for his forthcoming book on indie microblogging. It was fun(ny) to recall my original expectations for Micro.blog. Thanks to everyone here for making this job much nicer than I anticipated!