micro.blog
04 March 2017There’s a social network in the works called micro.blog. It aims to bridge the gap between microblogging and longform blogging. Though I as a blogger-of-sorts see promise in the concept I didn’t back it on Kickstarter. Nevertheless it raised over US$80,000 - something like 10x the stated goal? It’ll likely be moderately popular.
But meh. The founder has delayed the first stage reward for the backers, pushing back the assignment of usernames until the roll-out of the first stage of the networking bits
Why didn’t I back it? Simple really, the concept started off as a request for funds to assist in writing a book. Whether supplied by paper or electronic delivery I’m not certain, but it’s a bit of an anachronism in this electronic age. No bother, the blogging/social aspect is intriguing, especially the desire to appoint a manager to stamp on trolls and antisocial behaviour. But I didn’t back it because I already belong to an in-beta social, blogging, podcasting, etc., network: 10Centuries.org. You may already have seen that I like it a lot (and would like to invite you there.)
Oh, please disregard the fact that I’ve bought social/web books before in papery form too, namely Drew Curtis’s about Fark.com and Philip Greenspun’s about web publishing, and…
I’ve also been burned, er… ok singed a little, by a previous a Kickstarter campaign. For a twin-plate wallet.
The guy had iterated through innumerable designs, established materials, coatings, a supplier chain (with detailed discussions about tooling), and published a list of stretch goals for backer rewards, and gained multiple positive YouTube reviews…
And then the money arrived.
The materials changed, the suppliers changed, the coatings and production methods changed, the stretch goals were effectively eliminated as the previous costings were wiped out by all those changes.
And then, when the wallets were made available for sale months before delivery to Kickstarter backers, the recriminations started mounting. Obviously. There’s such a thing as retaining the attention of those who back you, keeping the momentum going.
Accuse me of sour grapes if you wish, but another social network??
A reminder: App.net shuts down in a week-and-a-half.