Over a year ago I proposed a new blog archive format. The idea was to have a better way to save the posts and photos in your blog, or move your blog to another platform. I’m happy to announce that Micro.blog can now export in this format.

Here’s how it works:

• Click Posts → Export → “Export in blog archive format”.
• Micro.blog will generate the archive, which is an HTML file with Microformats, a JSON Feed of all posts, and a folder of uploaded photos. The HTML file uses relative img references so you can open it directly without a server. The JSON Feed includes both HTML and Markdown. (Micro.blog actually uses Hugo to generate the HTML. I’ve made the theme available on GitHub.)
• The archive is zipped and renamed with the .bar file extension. When you download a .bar file, you can rename it .zip to open it, but having a new extension should make it more convenient to copy the file or import it into other apps.
• Micro.blog uploads the file to S3 and sends you an email when it’s available to download.

If you’ve uploaded a lot of photos, the archives can be fairly big. It’s working well for my blog and I’ll be monitoring it to see how well it works for other blogs. If you have a blog-related app that could import or export this format, let me know!

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There’s now an option to switch your subscription to be billed yearly instead of monthly. When you do, you’ll get a discount equivalent to 2 free months.

If you’re signed in to Micro.blog, click here to start switching your subscription. For now, new customers always start with monthly billing, but we’ll be expanding this in the future. (I talked through some of the complexity of this feature on the latest Core Intuition.)

Thanks for your support! If you notice any problems or have questions, please let me know: help@micro.blog.

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SXSW is underway in Austin, which means it’s time to mark the anniversary of my blog. 17 years ago today I started blogging on manton.org. Radio Userland → Movable Type → WordPress → Micro.blog. Still my favorite place to write.

I love this video from WordPress. Very similar in style to what I always imagined we could do for Micro.blog.

We just posted Core Intuition 363. This episode continues the big theme from the last few episodes as Daniel considers taking on extra work beyond Red Sweater. From the show notes:

Daniel reveals to Manton that he’s (on the verge of) taking a part-time job. They assess the likely impact on Red Sweater, and how it might affect Daniel’s self image as an “independent developer.” Manton talks about updates he’s making to Micro.blog’s billing infrastructure, and how small improvements can lead to recurring increases in revenues. Finally, Daniel reviews his plans for the upcoming 4.3 release, and questions whether having less time to work on Red Sweater might make the time he does spend on it more productive.

As part of the discussion around MarsEdit 4.3, I mention the new archive export feature in Micro.blog. That has now been rolled out. If you host your blog on Micro.blog, you can find it by clicking “Posts”, then “Export”.

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Brent Simmons has a good list of Marzipan questions. The one I’m slightly worried about is whether we can ship Marzipan apps outside the App Store. Other limitations will improve with time, but closing off distribution is a deal-breaker for me.

So many great podcasts. I’ve thrown out any structure in how I choose what to listen to. I just have a “Latest” playlist in Overcast with the recent episodes across all podcasts at the top. Tap on a few episodes that look good, depending on my mood.

Seems about once a year there’s a new story about the last Blockbuster. We loved visiting Bend a few years ago, but didn’t know about the Blockbuster. Fun that the store is becoming a sort of tourist attraction.

There’s no Homebrew Website Club in Austin tonight. We’ll regroup in April. (Thanks again to everyone who made it to IndieWebCamp Austin! Seeya next time.)

Some great basketball tonight: Spurs holding on with a 1-point win over the Nuggets. Pelicans close game in Utah. And still underway, the Lakers first of 2 must-win games against the Clippers. 🏀

Vincent Ritter has more iOS invites for his Micro.blog app. He’s also looking for Android testers.

I’m the guest on this week’s Micro Monday, answering questions about Micro.blog.

We just published episode 362 of Core Intuition. From the show notes:

Manton and Daniel talk about how IndieWebCamp Austin went, and reflect on the virtues of the diverse “open web” community. They react to a debate between Jeff Atwood & David Heinemeier Hansson about their purportedly different approaches to business. Finally, they talk about Daniel’s increasingly glum feelings about his business, Daniel makes some self-assessment of shortcomings, and the two of them talk about making small, productive tweaks to increase revenues.

You can subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Castro. Thanks for listening!

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Brad Frost shares a couple of stories about how people have remembered his writing because he has his own blog. He puts it very clearly:

Writing on your own website associates your thoughts and ideas with you as a person. Having a distinct website design helps strengthen that association.

This is why we encourage everyone to have their own blog and use their own domain name, and why Micro.blog-hosted blogs have multiple built-in designs as well as support for completely custom themes. I highlighted a few custom designs in the 12 days of microblogging series, and I recorded a YouTube screencast last month explaining how to import and customize new themes.

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I’ll be the guest in the next Micro Monday, catching up with @macgenie on recent Micro.blog improvements and answering your questions! Let us know if you have any questions or topics to cover.

I added a help page with an introduction to IndieAuth for Micro.blog developers. This is best for web apps and desktop apps where the user is often already signed in.

This week Jean published the 50th episode of Micro Monday! There are even more episodes than that if you count the bonus episodes. As she said on the show, it’s amazing what can happen when you’re consistent about recording every week.

The latest episode features Jonathan LaCour:

You know him best as @cleverdevil, the creator of utilities that enhance your microblog such as microgram (an Instagram-like photo grid page), and micromemories (a Facebook-like “On This Day” feature). We talk about the Indieweb and ditching Facebook with ditchbook. We even mention dogs and karaoke.

Thanks to all the guests over the last year, and to everyone who has listened. I’ve loved hearing the stories — putting voices to some of the profile photos in my timeline, and getting inspired each week to keep improving Micro.blog.

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Thinking about our Micro.blog APIs after IndieWebCamp Austin. There are a lot! Probably not even a complete list: RSS, JSON Feed, MetaWeblog, Micropub, ActivityPub, Microformats, WebSub, rssCloud, Webmention, IndieAuth, and now Microsub.

We had the 2nd IndieWebCamp Austin over the weekend. As I did after the 1st IndieWebCamp Austin, I’m going to summarize some of what I took away from the event.

Saturday morning started with my quick introduction to the IndieWeb, some thoughts from the perspective of Micro.blog, and then laying out the schedule for IndieWebCamp. Next up, Aaron Parecki gave a keynote on the state of social readers: how we can use apps to both read other people’s blogs and also reply to posts.

There was a time for personal site demos, where any attendee could show their web site and talk a little about what they’ve done with it recently or what improvements they might want to make. We then had a planning session, proposing ideas for sessions to organize the schedule for the afternoon. This is the un-conference style that I’m still getting used to, but which is really effective at shaping the conference for what attendees are actually interested in.

For the Sunday hack day, I focused on 2 things: experimenting with a Micro.blog export for the Blog Archive Format that I proposed here, and implementing the Microsub API in Micro.blog as a server. Along the way I also improved Micro.blog’s support for replies via Micropub.

Having everyone in the same room is a great chance to bounce ideas off one another or find and fix bugs. Cornelius Toole was also working on a script to create archive files, so we were able to work together and brainstorm on whether this could be used to transfer podcasts between providers. Aaron Parecki and I talked through a couple aspects of the Microsub and Micropub APIs that needed tweaking.

I’ll have more to share about the Blog Archive Format when it’s live on Micro.blog. I’ve been testing it this morning with a fix that wasn’t ready in time for my IndeWebCamp demo.

If you’re interested in attending an IndieWebCamp, there will be several more this year at cities from New Haven to Berlin, including IndieWeb Summit in Portland in June. I’m always inspired to see what people are working on, and it usually leads to new features in Micro.blog as well. Thanks again to everyone who made it to IndieWebCamp Austin!

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Wrapping up the first day of IndieWebCamp, Aaron Parecki is live-coding a simple blogging engine to demo social readers. Great example of the IndieWeb building blocks and interoperability between services.

Excited for IndieWebCamp tomorrow. If you’re disappointed in modern social networks and looking for what’s next on the open web, I hope you’ll join us at Capital Factory in Austin. More details and registration here.