I wasn’t aware of of Pika Pulse until the announcement of it shutting down recently. It sounds like a fantastic feature, and the developers of Pika seem like excellent people. For the past week or so I’ve been thinking about recommendations due to my work on Micro Social and including micro.blogs Discover feeds. There’s lots I want to do with it, but there’s always ethical things to consider.

Once you start to use the word recommended, or any simile, you get bogged down. There’s a responsibility of recommending, sharing or pointing towards something that we wall expect. If an influencers tells you a product is good, you expect it too be good. If a blog post appears on a recommended feed, you expect it to be a good read or at the very least represent whoever recommended it.

Technology companies know this more than most. Twitter (not x) used their Verification badge as a sudo support of threat they user was tweeting. Meta too got themselves into hot water recommending news articles and feeds.

There shouldn’t be this guarantee to standards with recommendation but there is. As a society we expect people to stand by their words and their actions and that’s a good thing. If I tell you my blog is good, and then you read it, you won’t trust me again!

I thought long and hard about the recommended book section in Micro Social, deciding to include it because it’s built from the community at large, and I have nothing to do with. But if people start getting rubbish reviews they won’t trust it very long — but that’s just the problem with recommendations.

As you might already know, I’m developing an iOS app for Micro.blog. It happened quite accidentally, really. I initially created a basic app for myself, which I used for a while, gradually adding features until it became something I thought others would enjoy. Now, it’s at a stage where I could take action, but I feel so much like an imposter that I can’t bring myself to do it.

I believe we all experience imposter syndrome at some point in our lives, and right now, it’s really holding me back. That little voice in my head keeps telling me that I’ll just let everyone down. Once other people start using it, they’ll realise how terrible it is and be angry. There will be a massive bug in it that I can’t fix, creating so much stress that any enjoyment I got from making it will be lost.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it? In other aspects of my life, I can usually tell this horrible little voice to shut up. But the reality is, I know nothing about this world of software development. I only started learning a little over a year ago and developed this app completely accidentally. So in some ways I feel as if the voice has a point. Sure I can write some code and design interfaces, but I can barely understand some of the developer documentation. I’m actually dreading trying to get notifications to work!

All of these words are to say that sometimes the biggest hurdle is yourself - and I’m really getting in my way at the moment.

There are many people out there that don’t realise just how much micro.blog can do, and one of my favourite things is to use it for is reading. It is a great resource for finding recommendations through all reading posts tagged 📚 and tracking the books I read through the year.

So in Micro Social, you will find a toggle to turn on the Books Tab. This works with the standard three bookshelves that every user has on micro.blog and turns the app into your reading companion. From the Book Tab you can see all the books you have on your bookshelves, move them around, and also search for a new book to add to your shelves by tapping the plus.

Finished a book? Just mark is as finished, and it will be moved to your finished reading shelf, with the ability to post about your achievement if you’d like to. Or just quietly revel in your awesomeness — that’s your choice.

Goals

Reading goals are a big motivator for me, so it was an obvious feature for me to add. Right at the top of the tab, you will be able to see all the books you finished this year, with a handle progress bar.

Bitten off a bit more than you can chew? No problem, you can edit your goal right in the app easily and your goal and progress will be updated.

Recommendations

Not sure what to read next and you want to read shelf is empty? Micro Social has a recommendations section that pulls books recommended by the micro.blog community for you to add to yourself. From here you can check out what the community are saying about the book, or add it straight to a shelf. You’ll never struggle with what to read next, you might not need to edit your reading goal after all!

That’s reading and the Books Tab on Micro Social — I think you’re going to love it (/Tim Cook voice).

Thank you to those currently supporting the development of Micro Social. I’m blown away by the support, and it means a lot to me. If you feel like you would like to contribute to my work and fund an App Store developer account, feel free to buy me a coffee or two.

Along with ensuring you can follow a conversation with ease, one of the biggest things I wanted from Micro Social is the ability to be customisable. To be able to shape the way the timeline of posts can be consumed. To get exactly what you want at any point. Here’s the timeline on Micro Social.

With a range of filters available, you can limit and expand the posts you see depending on your mood. You can hide your own (or all) replies from appearing, keep Mentions in their own tab and even get rid of all the photo posts. With a few taps, you can take a nosey feed and quieten it down to a whimper.

I’ve also implemented muting and blocking of profiles, both on micro.blog and federated from elsewhere. There is also full keyword filtering that straightforward to use, so you will only see what you want to.

Photos Timeline

Why would you want to hide photo posts, you might wonder, it’s a big part of micro.blog — well you can toggle on your own Instagram like feed of everyone’s photos instead. This unique experience mixes photos from your feed, discover and the photos collection into one place. With no infinite scroll to keep you hooked — one calm, happy place.

While we’re on photos, posts with multiple images won’t take up your whole timeline any more. They’ll be displayed in a nice carrousel for your enjoyment, and you can view them full screen with a tap. It doesn’t matter if you’re scrolling your feed, or viewing a threaded conversation, images look great but stay out of your way.

I feel as though I’ve moved so quickly with this app and I am getting to a really enjoyable place, so I’m getting more confident I may launch something soon. I have some more features planned to make this the only micro.blog app you need. There’s been some late nights, and I am sure there will be more to come, so stay tuned for more info.

If you feel like contributing to my work and maybe funding an App Store developer account feel free to buy me a coffee or two.

I like to pretend I am often asked, but I’m not. I am seldom asked – but the fact remains that I am asked. Exactly how I do the things I do, how do I take part in podcasts, present a persona online and interact with people on a daily basis building a business. I enjoy the shocked faces from people when I reply, “I don’t really know”.

You might interact with me on a professional level, you might tweet at me online, or you might listen to one of my podcasts. Wherever it is that you interact with me, I am eternally grateful, but what you don’t see is the behind the scenes footage.

You might listen to the 3 hour podcast with an interesting guest, or hear me talk about Apple news on BYOD. What you don’t hear is the 45 minute pep talk I’ve had to give myself just to start that show. The excuses to run away and not bother doing anything, and the almost crippling imposter syndrome that I have.

I constantly have to battle with myself, not only because I’m actually an introvert, but because I fear the reaction to everything I do. I want to create, I want to produce and I want to do more, but much of the time my mind just wont let me.

I get the impression I am not alone, but thankfully I am pretty good at talking to myself, and getting over the feelings of dread. It doesn’t stop everything that I do any more, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me. My love of creating out-ways my constant self doubt. I have a motivation for life and doing things that make me happy, and I hope others find this themselves.

You see this is not a cry for help, more a motivational call to say that others feel the same. Be kinder to yourself my friends.