Today we added Pixelfed cross-posting to Micro.blog. This joins our existing set of cross-posting services like Mastodon, Tumblr, Flickr, Bluesky, Nostr, and others.
Now you can post photos to your own blog, at your own domain name where you control your identity, and have Micro.blog send a copy elsewhere automatically. When posting, you can optionally select which services you want to include:
Because Micro.blog has built-in support for ActivityPub, your friends on Mastodon can also follow your blog directly without you needing to copy anything, or without you needing an account on any other platforms. There’s a lot of flexibility in how you want to configure this and which services you want to use. Some people even like to create a separate microblog just for photos.
As with all Micro.blog features, we’re looking forward to hearing how people use this. Photos are special, and there’s always more we want to do with them. We’ll continue to tweak the Pixelfed cross-posting based on feedback. Enjoy!
Manton Reece @jzfski I think we're going to stick with encouraging text replies. But you can upload a photo separately now from the Uploads screen and then copy/paste a link into a reply and it will work.
The Art Of Not Asking Why Awesome! Now I need to play with Glass RSS feeds and I think I'll have a nice photography upgrade to my blog.
Jan Erik Moström I assume this doesn't work if I upload using Mimi and then create a post in the micro.blog client with a link to the photo?
S Koren @timapple Ditto. Thank you.
Pratik @jtr We are trying to convince Glass to use ActivityPub. Om Malik also made a recommendation on our behalf to the CEO. Also, I think Manton is working on importing the photo that we post on Glass to Micro.blog instead of just linking to it on Glass. That effectively would serve as a backup to anything we post to Glass and be posted on your blog.
Manton Reece @jemostrom That actually does work! There's not really a difference between uploading the photo from Mimi as far as Micro.blog is concerned.
Jatan Tangent related to Pixelfed from their recent blog post introducing Sign-in with Mastodon:
By opting to sign up with Mastodon, your avatar, bio, username, and accounts you follow on Mastodon are automatically pre-filled on Pixelfed, saving you time and effort.
This seems something Micro.blog could do for Mastodon users wanting to explore the platform. It could include importing posts and optionally redirecting their Mastodon accounts too to make the whole process even more seamless!
Rasmus Sten this is a rather frustrating limitation that bothers me quite often. Attaching a photo to a reply is such a useful thing to do, especially in support/troubleshooting conversation.
💬 John Philpin Rasmus Sten @JohnPhilpin if it’s that simple to do with markup, that makes it even more silly that it’s not available in the client.
Manton Reece @pajp I hear you, and I know a lot of people agree. However, I remain of the opinion that too many image replies will lead to a busy timeline, full of memes and animated GIFs, making real conversations harder. Of course the occasional image is totally fine, which is why it's possible, but I think encouraging text replies is for the best. We reconsider this decision probably once a year and will reconsider it again!
Manton Reece @moonmehta That is interesting. I used to dislike basing sign-in on another platform (i.e. see what happened with Twitter) but I could see making an exception for something open like Mastodon.
crlzff.xyz Maybe OT, but since Pixelfed is based on ActivityPub, can I follow a Pixelfed account from Micro.blog? Or it’s just limited to Mastodon?And viceversa, I mean being followed by a Pixelfed account? (I guess that wouldn’t because of post type, text vs image based)
Ryan Booker 💬 John Philpin @pajp Maybe ... and .. not to speak for Manton but
Manton is being very considered and deliberate around the choices he has made building out the Micro Blog platform. His decisions might not always seem great when observed through a particular lens - trust me - been there! BUT his focus is as much (if not more) around culture and the emerging community as it is around technology. In this particular case, making it just slightly more inconvenient to post images in replies is enough to maybe make us a little more considered around the dialogues than otherwise. (I think this is also part of why 'no likes'.)
For me I don’t always agree with what features he may or may not add to the platform but I am truly impressed by his consistency in seeking to build something of quality with consideration and not just plucking easy wins out of a tech stack.
I think this quick 2*2 is a good summary of that proposition. Over to if he so desires.
Pratik @JohnPhilpin @pajp Agree. I think the way it is currently structured as a compromise is good. Mb does not allow direct uploading images to replies, but you can add it first to the Uploads and then link to it via the Markdown or HTML code in your reply that you get with a right click/long-press. This level of intentional friction doesn't prevent you from doing what you want and limits it to the user who really wants to.
Matthew Gregg @pratik Nothing in the MB API would stop a 3rd party client from adding images in replies, as easily as posts. I’ve often wondered what the response would be to this.
Pratik @mcg There wouldn’t. But there are very few third-party apps. Gluon is one. But the developer now also works on the official one.
Jan Erik Moström 
Numeric Citizen 
Mark Stoneman How does Micro.blog know when a post should be cross-posted to Pixelfed? And what parts of the post does it send over or drop? This feels like a situation where it might be better to have Pixelfed added to the options in the crosspost dropdown menu we can use for crossposting after the fact.
Mark Stoneman Just to add, I'm coming at this from a place where checkboxes for each service are not available, i.e., MarsEdit.
