After singing up for Tumblr and being sad that they’re not yet (and might never) federate with Activitypub I started digging around fedidb.org and found out about micro.blog.
It’s very similar to Tumblr but federates with Mastodon allowing you and Mastodon users to follow each other. You show up as, my example, jezebelley@thefrequency.blog to ActivityPub users (I had to reset my profile after switching to a custom domain so if you check it now there won’t be any posts. Before I reset my blog was federating perfecly). If you make a blog post of 300 characters or less it gets tossed right into your federated profile page with no click through necessary. Longer posts will be shown along with the rest on your blog domain proper (I.E https://micro.blog/jezebelley)
The catch? It’s not free. $5 gets you basic membership which allows blogging and photo uploads. Non animated only. $10 gets you premium which allows for video/gif hosting along with podcast features if you’re so inclined.
You’re also allowed to bring your own domain, in my case https://thefrequency.blog, to host directly to your custom corner of the web. It’s very simple to setup. If you want to go the super easy route you can sign up directly for a domain in the micro.blog settings with a major downside being you get no registration privacy meaning your URL is subject to WHOIS indexing. A major nono for privacy. I recommend name.com registration independent of micro.blog as you can pay $5 for their privacy package and then import it.
Anyway thought I’d give you all a heads-up for a great Tumblr style option right here on the fediverse!
I suspect this is unlikely to take off with Fediverse enthusiasts unless they open source it, or at least have some way people can self-host it and make a micro blogiverse.
It looks like they had plans to do that at one point. Unclear whether they still plan to do it. Tumblr and blogging honestly seem like the most natural fit for federation. More natural even than Twitter or Reddit. It’d be great to see them do that.
I get twitter, but why reddit?
I really enjoy using lemmy, and couldn’t see a more natural fit for federation. I’ve never been much of a blogger though, so maybe I’m missing something?
Because it kinda harkens back to old school blogs, where each person had their own personal blog that they managed themselves, but they would often be part of a community of like-minded blogs which would link through to each other.