People and Blogs: Manton Reece

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

I'm a web developer from Austin, Texas. I started as a Mac developer in the 1990s, working for a small Mac software company, then later a web development shop and a larger company before founding my own business. I created the Tweet Marker timeline sync API before becoming disillusioned with big centralized platforms like Twitter.

In 2017, I launched a Kickstarter campaign for https://Micro.blog and my book Indie Microblogging. My career is now dedicated to building tools for people to blog. For Micro.blog we believe the web is better if it's more distributed, with microblogging on your own site that you control, and communities built on top of microblogging and smaller social networks.

When I'm not coding and running Micro.blog, I love to read books, travel, and spend time with family.

What's the story behind your blog?

I started my personal blog in 2002 while at SXSW. There was an excitement at the conference around blogging, and at the time I thought I was kind of late to blogging. I've stuck with it through the years and still have a complete archive of all my posts, now going on 20+ years, at the same domain name.

These days I blog a lot about Micro.blog, but I've never had a specific theme for the blog. Sometimes I write about books, movies, art, technology, or other topics. I blog mostly for myself, and love looking back on old posts years later.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Most of my posts are short microblog posts. Just things I'm working on or thinking about. For longer posts, I usually jot down some notes and then later pull them together into a full post. Much more rarely do I put together longer posts that require research. Some of my essays about microblogging ended up forming the basis for my book Indie Microblogging.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I've been working at home nearly forever and find it very helpful to change locations. I love working at coffee shops... In fact I'm typing this right now from a coffee shop! New environments feel like "going to work" and help me focus without as many distractions. It's also sometimes nice to be surrounded by people, even strangers.

Several years ago I switched away from using larger external monitors and just use my MacBook Pro regardless of where I am. I like that it's the same everywhere I go, so I don't feel like I'm any less productive when away from my home office.

I also enjoy traveling and working from the road. Last year I rented a camper van and lived and worked while driving down the west coast from Portland to San Francisco for a couple weeks. Seeing new places also feeds back into my blog where I post photos of wherever I'm going.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

My blog is powered by Micro.blog now. The first version used Radio Userland, then I moved to Movable Type, and then to WordPress. I've moved my posts along each time I've migrated to a new system, and the design has changed a bunch of times.

I write most of my posts directly in Micro.blog. Longer posts usually start in Ulysses or MarsEdit. I also often use the Mac app Acorn for resizing or cropping screenshots.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I'm biased because I now run Micro.blog and love using it for my blog. When we first released Micro.blog, I was still using WordPress, and I found it was helpful to move to Micro.blog so I could experience exactly what my own customers were going through. Because I plan to blog and run Micro.blog for the rest of my life, I don't expect to need to switch platforms again, and many of Micro.blog's features were inspired by what I wanted in my own blog.

For my blog name, I've always just used my own name. I feel like that keeps it personal and I probably wouldn't come up with a more clever name if I was starting over. But I also enjoy reading other blogs that have a specific name and theme to what they write about.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

I use the $10/month hosting plan on Micro.blog, but luckily because I own the company I don't have to pay myself for hosting. 🙂 My blog has never generated money directly, except a tiny amount years ago when I was using Amazon referral links. The blog has been invaluable as a way to connect to people or promote my work, though. Indirectly my blog has definitely helped my earlier apps and now my business with Micro.blog become more successful.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

I still develop Mac and iOS apps and like to stay connected with the Apple ecosystem, so some of my favorite tech blogs include Daring Fireball, 512 Pixels, Stratechery, Six Colors, and Pixel Envy. On the IndieWeb side, I'd love to hear more about the unique blogging setups from Tantek Çelik, Aaron Parecki, and Ryan Barrett

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

During the COVID pandemic, I got back into reading novels, especially epic fantasy books. I like blogging about a book when I finish reading it, posting photos of nice hardcover books, and collecting "year in books" posts that I can post to my own site. I think there are many types of "content" that we default to posting on centralized silos, whether that's Goodreads, Instagram, Foursquare, or Reddit. But all of that becomes much more interesting when it's just as easy to post to our own blogs. I'm always inspired when I see bloggers doing interesting things with new post types on their own site.