I've stared my micro-blog, Hey It's Me, a couple of days ago and here's why you should do it too. I'm afraid of the future where content is published on a big platform like Twitter or YouTube. Much of what I'm terrified is already happening, but recently I'm seeing a general shift in a better direction.

Algorithms

Most of the people I know consume their content using some kind of a social media platform. I believe that algorithms can be used for good for so many things, but curating what you see and read isn't the best idea. I've realized how annoying Twitter became since they started to alter the feed.

Tomo Kihara developed an amazing experiment called TheirTube showing how recommendation algorithms drain you to a rabbit hole of similar (mis)information. On TheirTube you can check out different profiles from Fruitarian, persona based on a person who was practicing fruitarianism, to Conspiracist, which I'm sure you know what it means.

We need a better way of curating content we want to consume. It's ok to be interested in a specific topic, but it's essential to limit the sources of misinformation, something that social media is terrible at.

RSS

RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is a protocol or rather a system that allows you to gather content from different sources. So this is the part where blogs comes in handy since you can follow a specific person using an RSS feed. All content will be gathered in your RSS feed, without an algorithm and unwanted distractions. You can subscribe to different feeds, anything from small creators like me to big publishing companies like The New York Times.

There are so many different applications that can handle RSS. I use Feedbin (paid), but there are other alternatives like Feedly, MiniFlux and others. If you're not looking for cross-platform service, there must be some local RSS readers available for your preferred OS.

Micro-Blogging Instead Of Tweeting

At first, I couldn't justify micro-blogging, but I soon realized how much I like reading what other people have to say. On Instagram, you might share a photo of you at the beach and make people FOMO. On your micro-blog, you can share that an much more, your thoughts, problems, solutions, feelings, experiences, you can bring real value to people reading your blog.

Who I Follow

There are some issues with micro-blogging like interaction, connection with the community, discoverability and more. I think bloggers should help each other out, so here are a few personal blogs I enjoy reading.

• Jan-Lukas Else is an awesome guy writing about life, technology, programming and a lot more. I love his content.

• If you're interested in space, check our Jatan's Space. It's a personal blog about space exploration, fascinating stuff.

• Kev Quirk has a cool blog about technology. You can find some awesome How To's there. He is Fosstodon admin and creator of #100DaysToOffload challenge.

• I've met Ru Singh when I created my Mastodon account. Her blog is fantastic, and you should check it out! (I think she is my internet crush, but don't tell her that.)

• Mike Stone, a father of Fosstodon, loves to write about FOSS, programming... Mike is an awesome man, and I can't thank him enough for creating Fosstodon.

There are quite a few more bloggers that I like to include on this list. I'm sure I will write about them sooner or later. If you find something you might enjoy from this list, make sure to start following their feed using RSS.

You can follow my RSS feed for Set Of Principles. I also have a micro-blog called Hey It's Me that you might enjoy.

I'm incredibly thankful to be able to read and learn from other people in this way. I love reading their posts, and I even get excited when I see that a new post is available.

Inspiration

I've written this article because of Jan's view on micro-blogging. You should read his post called “Why I started microblogging”. You should also read his post called “I deleted my Twitter account”.

I feel so grateful to be part of this community. I think everyone should start micro-blogging. If you already blog or you might want to give it a go, make sure to send me an email odyy7h8px [at] pm(dot)me.

#RSS #Decentralization #Blogging