Micro.blog: What It Is and How to Join It

Micro.blog is a social network and blogging platform that combines features from Twitter, Tumblr, and other platforms in an attempt to be the central home for all of your online publishing. This article examines how Micro.blog works, what it costs, and how Micro.blog compares to Twitter.

What Is Micro.blog?

Micro.blog is a short-form blogging platform and social network. It combines a Twitter-style timeline view of updates from people that you follow or who you discover with a Tumblr- or Blogger-style blogging platform. The timeline view is the default users see when they log into their accounts.

The features of Micro.blog are designed to make the platform your primary home for online publishing. It tries to do this by making it easy to publish content on that platform and to share it to other platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Mastodon, among others. It also makes it easy for you to import content from other platforms you use via RSS.

That said, you can use Micro.blog on its own without needing to connect your activities there to any other platforms. So it works perfectly well even if you don't use Twitter, Tumblr, etc. Likewise, you don't need to use the social features of Micro.blog in order to have a place for your writing.

How Does Micro.blog Work?

Like Twitter, Tumblr, and other social and publishing sites, Micro.blog is a single platform in which all users log into and post content.

When you post content on Micro.blog, it is available in two views: a timeline and a blog.

The timeline is fairly similar to Twitter. You see the messages you post to the site, along with those posted by people you follow. You can comment on other people's messages, embed them on other sites, and discover new people to follow.

Your blog is a chronological record of all the posts you've made on the site. Posts can be of varying lengths and include media content. Your blog design can be customized, can add functionality via plug-ins, and can be hosted either on a custom domain name or on a Micro.blog address.

Still, the two views are showing you fundamentally the same content (at least the content you post; the content posted by people you follow only appears on your timeline or on their blog). You can then re-publish your content to other platforms or import content from those platforms into your Micro.blog account.

How Do I Join Micro.blog? 

Join Micro.blog by signing up at Micro.blog's registration page.

When you sign up, you're prompted to subscribe to one of the service's monthly plans (more on that in the next section). In our testing, we were able to skip that step and start using the site right away. Of course, our account may get canceled after the 30-day trial. We'll see!

What Does Micro.blog Cost?

New users get a free 30-day trial of Micro.blog. After that, a paid subscription is required.

The basic plan, which costs $5 a month, delivers all of the basic features of the site, plus the ability to customize the design of your blog, posting to and importing from other platforms, and the use of native smartphone apps.

A $10 per month plan has all of the $5 features, plus support for hosting podcasts and short videos, as well as an email newsletter system.

The $15 per month Micro.blog Family plan takes all of the features of the first two plans and adds group-blogging support for up to 5 users on a single account/blog.

How Does Micro.blog Compare to Twitter?

Conclusion

Micro.blog offers an intriguing combination of features familiar from Twitter and Tumblr. As with many new social networks, the biggest question is whether it can attract enough users to generate the critical mass and network effects that make social media truly useful and compelling.