There are always little coding details that are hard to predict before launch until things are mostly ready to go. This morning worked on our gift invites for Micro.one. Existing Micro.blog customers will be able to invite and pay for someone to get a year of blog hosting for $10.

Fourth quarter of this Longhorns game is wild and way too stressful. Enjoyed the first few quarters, though! Yikes. 🏈

Wow, Longhorns starting really strong. 🏈

Lots of new books and films in the public domain today! Including the first version of Mickey Mouse with white gloves in The Opry House, available on the Internet Archive.

Love this post from Allen Pike, about magic and the seemingly impossible accomplishments just being a lot of work and planning:

The pianist whose fingers seem supernaturally nimble, the presenter whose message seems viscerally compelling, and the artist whose paintings seem impossibly realistic all wield the same magic: they’ve invested more time than you’d expect.

Happy new year! I just sent an email with no subject line… Amateur hour over here as we start 2025. Hope it’s not a preview of what the rest of the year will be like.

Retired jerseys at Frost Bank Center. Last game of 2024, Spurs vs. Clippers. 🏀

Nowhere Bookshop. 📚

Hotel Emma at the Pearl. Spending the day in San Antonio.

Off and on for years I had been trying to figure out what a more slimmed down version of Micro.blog would look like. Maybe text-only blog posts, no photos? Maybe only short posts, or only long-form posts? Maybe some limit with podcasting? But taking away certain features und...

Having fun this morning working on a couple animated GIFs for the Micro.one website. Using Gifox for the basics, which I really like so far. Simple, clean design. And Acorn 8 can now edit animated GIFs as layers, great for quick resizing or edits.

“Did you ever re-subscribe to The Washington Post?”

“No. And I never will.”

My good opinion once lost is lost forever.

Nick Heer blogging about the report of Meta’s plans for AI-generated social content: Imagine opening any of Meta’s products after this has taken over. Imagine how little you will see from the friends and family members you actually care about. Imagine how much slop you will...

Another detail about Micro.one, especially for folks who want to share it with friends and family as soon as it launches: it will be limited to 3000 total subscribers. That’s a tiny number at the scale of big silos, but it’s a lot for us. Needs to be sustainable in the context of the whole platform.

Fleet Coffee on Manor. ☕️

“When ya ain’t got nothin', you got nothin' to lose
You’re invisible now, ya got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel?” — Bob Dylan

Found this first edition, signed copy of A Song for Arbonne at Half Price Books the other day and had to get it. Read it so long ago that it’ll be like reading it for the first time. I’m always on the lookout for old Kay books, they seem in short supply. 📚

Added a new blogging page to the Micro.blog website when you’re not signed in. This is the start of bringing back some more text and screenshots. Just a Mac screenshot for now. Also might reuse some of this for Micro.one.

Texas French Bread, still boarded up after the fire a couple years ago.

Several people have already correctly guessed that Micro.one will be a ridiculously low $1/month. I hope this helps it reach more people. It will also be a perfect gift subscription to give to friends and family.

Nice video review on YouTube of many of the improvements in Micro.blog recently, including photo collections and replies from Mastodon and Bluesky.

At the coffee shop this morning I asked the barista to make my latte before I paid for it so I could try it first. Wait, no. Because demos and trials are an important complement to things that need thought and time and money, like a $40 app. But does $5 software need a trial? What about if it’s $1?

Rail lights from Manor. 🚂

To know what a product is means knowing what it is not.

I’ve suggested a couple times this year that I want to rethink the Micro.blog trial period. It feels like the time for a change. Next week I’m going to remove the 10-day trial. You can pay, or not! And new users can start with a Micro.one subscription and then upgrade to Micro.blog if they want to.

Some interesting stats in Mastodon’s 2023 report. Patron donors have dropped over the last couple of years, but total donations are up because of larger, single donations. Makes me wonder if the future of financing Mastodon might be more commercial offerings, like paid hosting or subscriptions.

Christmas tree with green books at Half Price Books. 📚

By popular demand, added a sign-up form to the Micro.one teaser home page. I’ll send an email to everyone at launch on January 2nd. Then I’ll sell the mailing list to the highest bidder and you’ll get spam for life. (Just kidding. It’ll be a one-time email.)

We got a new game for the holidays: Everdell. Still figuring it out but it’s great so far. Looking forward to checking out the expansions too.

One week until the Micro.one launch.