Micro.blog: what Twitter would be if it was built as part of the open web

For the last couple of months, I’ve been really enjoying using micro.blog, a Kickstarted Twitter-like microblogging service. It has made some interesting design choices – like not disclosing how many people follow you, and keeping Favourites as a purely personal bookmarking tool – that tend to promote real discussions on there.

Best of all, it’s not a silo like Twitter; it’s built with the tools of the open web. As Brent Simmons puts it:

We could be excused for thinking that Micro.blog is like App.net — a Twitter alternative greeted with enthusiasm but that eventually closed.

It’s not the same thing, though, and I’ll explain why.

Micro.blog is not an alternative silo: instead, it’s what you build when you believe that the web itself is the great social network.

That’s the important part: even if Micro.blog doesn’t last (though I believe it will), the idea — that the web itself is where we are and where we talk to each other — will continue.

If this intrigues you, you can sign up for micro.blog, and you can follow my micro.blog, too.