I first set out to build a new service just for microblogs. It has a timeline experience like a social network, with replies and favorites, but it’s based on RSS, with the main posts pulled from independent sites.
+ it appears to be $10 to reserver your username and $100 for 12 months of the service.
Manton should make money but isn’t he simply re-creating the issues we have with today’s social networks? He’s creating a centralized silo that is a destination to read people’s written words. Markdown, RSS, ad-free are all great but I don’t see any commitments here to data-portability or a self-hosted version. I’d pay Manton $30 to license Micro.Blog’s architecture and host it on my own site for my own personal use. $100 a year to borrow his server space seems poorly thought out when his video talks about the issues with sites going away and so does your writing along with it.