ThreadReaderApp now has beta support for the Micropub Spec so you can publish Twitter threads directly to your blog

So… a while back I tweeted about a bit of functionality I’ve long thought would be a cool one to have for Twitter:

I would often see people post tweetstorms, long threads of related tweets, to tell an extended story.

Invariably people see these threads and say “Why don’t/didn’t you just post that on your website as a blog post instead?”

(In fact, why don’t you try it on this very tweet?)

I’ve personally been using the #IndieWeb concept of P.O.S.S.E. (Post on your Own Site and Syndicate Elsewhere) for a while now. I’ll post my content on my personal website first and only then syndicate a copy to Twitter.
indieweb.org/POSSE

But today, for the first time in a very LONG time, I’m posting this particular thread to Twitter first…

Then when I’m done, I’ll roll it all up conveniently using the awesome @ThreadReaderApp which will put a nice readable version on their site.

Presto!

Blogpost, right??

Sadly, I don’t own that copy…

It really needs to be on my blog for that to work, right?!

“But wait. There’s more.” as they say in advertising.

Now with the help of @ThreadReaderApp, and the Micropub plugin for #WordPress, I’ll be able to view my thread on ThreadReader in a brand new bonus feature that’s currently in beta. Screencapture of ThreadReaderApp site featuring a button labeled

Yes, you guessed it! It’s that wondrous “Publish to Blog” button!!

With a quick click, @ThreadReaderApp will authenticate and I can authorize it to publish to my WordPress site on my behalf.

I can now publish the entire thread to my own website!!

Now this thread that I’ve published to Twitter will live forever archived on my own website as its own stand-alone blogpost.

Huzzah!!

I’m not sure how often I’m prone to do this in the future, but I hope we won’t hear that “Why didn’t you just post that on your own website as a blogpost?” as frequently.

With just a button push, I’ll be able to quickly and simply cross-post my Twitter threads on Twitter directly to my website!
#OwnYourData

In #IndieWeb terminology this publishing workflow is known as P.E.S.O.S. or Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate to Your Own Site.
indieweb.org/PESOS

I’ll mention for the masses that this publishing functionality is only possible courtesy of a W3C recommendation (aka web standard) known as Micropub.
indieweb.org/Micropub

Because it’s a web standard, @ThreadReaderApp can build the functionality once & it should work on dozens of platforms including @WordPress @Drupal @WithKnown @CraftCMS @Jekyllrb @GetKirby @GoHugoIO @MicroDotBlog among a growing set of others.
indieweb.org/Micropub/Serve…

Some of these may have built-in or core support for the standard while others may require a simple plugin or module to support this functionality.

Don’t see your platform supported yet? Ask your CMS or platform provider to provide direct support.

It shouldn’t take much work for @Ghost @grabaperch @squarespace @Wix @getgrav @magento @typo3 @Blogger @medium @Tumblr @mediawiki @omeka and others to support this too.

There’s lots of open source implementations already out there in various languages and there’s a fantastic test suite available for developers.

I’ll also give a quick shout out to @iAWriter which also just added Micropub support to let people use their editor to post to their websites.

And of course once you’ve realized that your platform supports Micropub to publish to your website, why not try out one of the dozens of other Micropub clients out there?
indieweb.org/Micropub/Clien…

They support a variety of post or content types from full articles to photos and geolocation to bookmarks. The sky’s the limit.

Some of my favorites are Quill, OwnYourSwarm, Omnibear, and Teacup. And let’s not forget social feed readers like Monocle and Indigenous that let you read and respond to content directly in your feed reader! (I no longer miss Google Reader, now I just feel sorry for them.)

Congratulations again to @ThreadReaderApp for helping to lead the way in the corporate social space for support of the awesomeness that Micropub allows.

Thread away!

Published by

Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

75 thoughts on “ThreadReaderApp now has beta support for the Micropub Spec so you can publish Twitter threads directly to your blog”

  1. In het verleden heb ik mijn twijfel geschreven over threads op Twitter zie. Waarom post je dit (ook) niet op je eigen blog? Er zijn auteurs die er een expertise van maken om uitgebreide threads te posten. Het is dan zo zonde om dit niet op een eigen moederschip terug te vinden. Waar het een langer leven kan hebben, beter vindbaar en linkbaar is.
    Al tijden zijn er gespecialiseerde diensten om Twitter threads samen te vatten op één pagina of zelfs als PDF te downloaden. ThreadReaderApp is zo’n dienst. En laten zij nu een nieuwe service in beta hebben, als ik de blogpost (en thread!) van Chris Aldrich lees. Dankzij een webstandaard die door het indieweb is ontwikkeld, kun je straks je Twitter thread via ThreadReaderApp direct op je eigen blog posten. Fantastisch!
    Zo haal je het beste uit beide werelden. Je kunt op Twitter direct feedback krijgen van je publiek, je hebt het voordeel van het netwerkeffect. Maar je verhaal blijft niet in de silo van het netwerk. Je kunt via Micropub deze direct op je eigen site doorplaatsen. Hoe Micropub werkt voor WordPress leg ik in deze handleiding uit.
    Helaas heb ik geen toegang tot de beta-functie, dus deze blogpost is niet als Twitter thread geschreven, zoals Chris wel heeft gedaan als demo. Maar ik hou het in de gaten en als het beschikbaar is, zal ik het zelf testen. Nu nog een thread bedenken die ik dan kan schrijven…
     

    1. Frank, apologies in advance to you and your readers for the reply in English. The feature is definitely in Beta and there are no instructions I’m aware of yet, but if you’re adventurous and want to take a stab, you might try visiting https://threadreaderapp.com/account/micropub while logged into ThreadReader to see what happens. The developers may drop some documentation/links into the IndieWeb chat shortly for a more “official” beta, but do write about your experiences/problems so they can fix any problems or round off any UI quirks you may encounter.

  2. Hi Chris

    I can’t find any documentation to tell me HOW iA Writer can work with Micropub. I’ve been using both for ages now and linking them would be ideal.

    1. I looked the other day myself, but its apparently only usable with the Mac and iOS versions. They haven’t built it into Windows or Android versions yet, so you definitely won’t see it there. I’ve seen some reports that they’re still making some tweaks and getting bugs worked out on the Mac side. Which platforms are you using?

    1. I only use it every couple of weeks and it was working the last time I tried it. I don’t use it very often as it makes backfeed from Twitter using Brid.gy a bit harder/less intuitive unless you know how all the plumbing works. Usually I POSSE content from my site to Twitter rather than use PESOS like this method.

      It looks like you might have to go to https://threadreaderapp.com/account/author to click the publish button to send it to your website now. They’ve made a few subtle changes since I wrote the original. Did it work for you?

  3. Threaderapp unroll!
    Acabo de leer este post que tiene un par de añitos ya sobre cómo podrías hacer un hilo en Twitter y luego llevártelo a tu blog foreva con Threadreader boffosocko.com/2020/05/28/thr… por ello necesito primero hacer un hilo, y a eso voy
    Todo esto viene por la sempiterna investigación con #Indiweb para crear un veritable jardín digital
    Que antes o después debería llevarme a poder escribir los planteamientos técnico-prácticos de cómo cualquier podría hacerlo entendiendo bien cada paso y tomando así un pasito más hacia la soberanía digital
    Así que llegados a este punto voy a publicar, desenrrollar y ver si lo puedo llevar a comunicacionabierta.net bien empaquetadito

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *