Seth Godin on daily blogging:
For years, I’ve been explaining to people that daily blogging is an extraordinarily useful habit. Even if no one reads your blog, the act of writing it is clarifying, motivating and (eventually) fun.
As he says, you’ve gotta get past the first couple hundred posts to see the most value. This is why indie microblogging is so useful. Start with some short posts, a few photos, and eventually it’s a habit. Stick with it and you’ll really have something.
In Micro.blog we have some pins to encourage people to blog more often. You’ll unlock pins after your first photo, 10 posts, setting up a custom domain, and more. Today, if you mention “Halloween” or “pumpkin” in a blog post you’ll unlock the special Halloween pin.
Dan Alcantara the pins are one of the things that have got me hooked!
Manton Reece @danalcantara Thanks, glad to hear it!
Amit Gawande When I joined the platform initially, pins was a great way that got me going. I wrote more, posted more images. I think we need to have more pins though - stricter targets (60/90/365 days etc) should give more interesting pins.
Greg McVerry @amit I am trying to work on a form of webmention badges so we can just invent all the pins we want for each other.
Ron Guest @amit I would be a total underachiever. I can’t even get a 30 day pin (though I did something get 25). I write something virtually every day but given social media’s many flaws there are a number of things I wouldn’t post publicly. In general I get an anti-reaction to gamification. So maybe a set of pins that reward regular participation without a daily requirement would be nice. Lots of possibilities along this line.
Pratik @ronguest Ha! I'm with you. I've all the pins except the 30 day one. And I don't want to post every day just to get that pin. Some days I post a lot and sometimes not for days or just reply. @amit
Thomas Juntunen Pins? Is this a Halloween thing?
💬 John Philpin @pratik 30 days is so random
- 25 makes much more sense for the binary/decimal world
- 28 as in 4 weeks also logical
... I mean its only a 1 in 3 chance that 30 days is even a month !
// @amit @ronguest
Pratik @JohnPhilpin I never thought of it that way. The 1 in 3 is even more damning. Yup, now I don’t feel bad about missing that pin 😊
💬 John Philpin @pratik
“We'll routinely add new types of pins”
…
... I guess so long as it is at a ‘regular interval’ it is still routine :-)
// @amit @ronguest
Manton Reece @tmj You can mention "Halloween" in a blog post today to unlock a pin! But the rest are for throughout the year. 🙂
Manton Reece @JohnPhilpin @pratik @amit @ronguest I really thought I'd add more pins by now. I'll have to prioritize adding at least one new one in November.
💬 John Philpin ... we can’t be gamed … no no no ... pins are not the same thing at all :-)
// @pratik @amit @ronguest
Yorrike @JohnPhilpin @pratik @amit @ronguest It'd also be useful if there were somewhere where the limited-time pins were detailed.
Amit Gawande @jgmac1106 Ah, am curious. I am not sure I understand how that will work!? 🤔
Amit Gawande @pratik @ronguest Sure, the 30 day pin was the most difficult one to achieve. But I made it one of my 30 days challenges I keep throwing at myself. It took a lot of planning and a steely resolve - uhh.. are we still talking of the pins? 😬
Amit Gawande @JohnPhilpin @pratik lol, 1 in 3 chance - ha! I agree. May be we need a way for regular breaks - hit 5 days in a week for 5 straight weeks and you get a pin 😬
I love ways Fitbit (not sure about Apple) handles pins.
Thomas Juntunen Unlock pins? Like merit badges? I guess I should read the docs, haven’t noticed such things before. Are they a new addition?
Manton Reece @tmj Yep, there's a link at the top of the Account screen on the web. I'm not sure they are actually documented excepted in some of my blog posts.
Shawn Medero I remember I used to be able to access Pins from my account page but I don't see a link to it anymore... did it move?
Shawn Medero @soypunk Okay, I guessed at the URL and found it but there's no obvious link on my Account page to get to them.
Greg McVerry @amit neither do I but I am always gonna give it a try: github.com/jgmac1106... may try first using a Known Idno plugin...currently doing by hand not scalable
💬 John Philpin Thomas Juntunen That explains it, I virtually never use the web version.
Manton Reece @soypunk It didn't move, but there's an annoying quirk of the UI where if you had a hosted site that expired, it doesn't show the pins link. Try /account/pins in your web browser until I fix this.
Shawn Medero thanks for the follow-up!
