I’m excited about indie microblogging.

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Manton Reece has big plans for microblogs.


A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about what would happen if Twitter disappeared or became unusable. I started to explore other options for connecting with others in the design community. I started posting to Dribbble again* and I started playing around with Medium.**

Last week, while listening to my usual playlist of podcasts, I stumbled on a couple of discussions about Manton Reese’s Indie Microblogging Kickstarter project.

I backed it instantly.

The Kickstarter has two parts: A book and a service.

The book will detail a framework for independent microblogging… basically a standards-based system for posting and sharing Twitter-like posts.

The service is Micro.blog. And it’s a fascinating attempt to make it as easy as possible to host your own micro blog, basically a decentralized version of Twitter.

I think Manton’s got some great ideas. And I think his heart is in the right place. I love the idea of leveraging RSS for the underpinning of the service. I think 280 characters is great. The iPhone app supports Markdown. You can use your own domain for free or pay $5/month for Micro.blog to host your microblog. An API that others can use to hook into the service. And oh yeah, and the name is perfect.

The Kickstarter project was funded on the first day. And he’s now got a stretch goal — $80,000 — to help fund a community manager to shape the service and actively address the bullying and nastiness that is rampant on Twitter. I don’t know if he’ll make the stretch goal, but I love that he’s already thinking about this.

Also, remember in the early days if Twitter, before they cracked down on the API usage, when third party developers were extending and improving the service. I hope those developers throw everything they’ve got at supporting Micro.blog.

Many people are skeptical that Micro.blog will blossom into a sustainable full featured Twitter replacement. And I completely get that. Look at all the failed attempts to replace or replicate the functionality of Twitter of the years. It's tough to build a large user base for a new social media site and it's too early to tell if Micro.blog will take off — after all, the service hasn’t even launched yet. But I think the service and the concept are the right idea at the right time. I’m looking forward to using the service and watching it develop in the coming years.

I’m excited about Micro.blog and about the plan to use RSS to power what is essentially an independent version of Twitter. If you are concerned about the future of Twitter and social networks, I really encourage you to head over to Kickstarter and back the Indie Microblogging project.

* Watch for another post about using Dribbble…
** Of course, who knows what Medium will become.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. In his spare time, he browses RSS feeds in Feedly. Follow Bob on Twitter and Instagram.

Adding Twitter status to Squarespace

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I wanted to add my Twitter updates to my Squarespace site. It’s really simple, but I didn’t find much on how to modify it. So I figured I’d post details on adding Twitter to a Squarespace site and customizing the appearance. Some of this may be helpful for adding Twitter to other sites, but I’ve written this specifically to apply to Squarespace.

Adding the HTML

I went to Twitter and copied the HTML “badge” code removing a few elements that I didn’t need. (I’m not fond of the Flash versions…) I created a new HTML widget in the sidebar and pasted the following code…

<div id=”twitter_div”>
    <ul id=”twitter_update_list”></ul>
</div>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://twitter.com/javascripts/blogger.js”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/USERID.json?callback=twitterCallback2&amp;count=1”></script>

Two things to note in the final version that you will use. USERID will be replaced with your Twitter ID. And the last line says “count=1.” This is the number of Tweets posted to your site. I wanted a single update posted so mine says “count=1.” You may want 3 or more and you set that number here.

Adding the CSS

The next step is to style it to match your site design. I added four lines to the Custom CSS section under the Style Editing tab:

#twitter_div { text-align: right; color: #727277; font-size: 18 px; }
#twitter_div a:link { color: #727277; }
#twitter_div a:hover { color: #f97c00; }
#twitter_div span { display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; }

I used #twitter_div to modify the general properties, including the post itself and the time stamp below it. (By default, font size of the time stamp is set to be 80% of the post size.)

The #twitter_div a:link and #twitter_div a:hover are used to modify the appearence of the links.

The #twitter_div span section modifies the properties of the tweet. Inserting “display: block” separates the post from the time stamp. (Note: I found some tips online that added “display: block” to #twitter_div a:link. That works sometimes, but causes problems when you include a link, reply or mention in your post.) “Margin-bottom” adds space between the post and the time stamp. You could use “margin-top” here to add space between posts if you decide show more than one post.

And obviously, you can insert your own CSS here to match the design of your site. Have fun playing around with it.