As long as they're hosted somewhere on the internet, you can add images with regular Markdown. Built-in support for photo management is in the pipeline though!
Would also note it works pretty well for microblogging -- here's an example (with some custom styling)[0]. Small posts with a single paragraph also get federated out as `Note`s instead of `Article`s, which makes them show up on Mastodon pretty nicely.
Yes, the project is still alive and well! It also powers our very alive commercial service, Write.as, which has most of my attention. The open source project is just moving at a one-maintainer pace because it only has one maintainer :)
There will definitely be future releases, especially once we get through a roadblock with the tool we use to cross-compile WriteFreely [0]. Otherwise, anyone who wants to see the project move faster is more than welcome to contribute, especially with tasks like code review, to help clear out those PRs [1].
You might like what we've built with Write.as [0]. It's Markdown-based, but without all the publishing overhead of a static site generator.
There are a lot of other great small platforms that are made especially for blogging, rather than being general-purpose like some of the options you mentioned. E.g. Bear Blog [1] and Svbtle [2]
I appreciate the feedback. Our setup does require some basic sysadmin knowledge... But did you try installing from source or one of our binaries [0]? What kind of federation issues did you run into? We're always happy to help with installation and configuration issues on our forum, by the way [1].
And out of curiosity, what didn't you like about our thought process on micropayments?
Hey, really sorry this happened to you, we obviously dropped the ball there. If this still needs to be resolved, can you email me again: matt [at] write.as with your username, or a receipt number, etc. so we can get that squared away? Happy to issue refunds for those months when you weren't able to access your account.
Just curious, which features did you want that were proprietary at the time?
The primary reasons for including certain features in Write.as but not in WriteFreely are when they're very early (it's easier to deploy and fix on a single hosted service), or when they involve a ton of external dependencies. My thinking on the latter is that I'd rather leave a feature out than leave admins with a poor experience, vendor lock-in, lacking documentation, etc. But maybe that's the wrong way to think about it.
Either way, "locking features off" isn't a business strategy here, but just a matter of practicality as a very small open source project. As I mentioned elsewhere, we plan to bring things into parity for v1.0. And we very much welcome contributors -- even if it's just reviewing pull requests!
Hi! I'm the lead developer of WriteFreely -- happy to answer any questions you have!
For a little update on where the project is today: we just put out our last update [0] before v1.0, which we're aiming to release later this year. In 1.0, among other things, you'll find many features we've been piloting on our hosted service (Write.as), including newsletters, social media cross-posting, eBook export, etc.
We're also experimenting with new, non-core features, like photo hosting [1] and comments [2]. Our core focus has always been on just writing, which is why many features (including ones afforded by ActivityPub) have been left out. So we're trying to see what's possible when we keep a clean, simple core with optional "rooms" of functionality around it. If you want to keep up with us, you should see more developments around this before the end of the year, too.
There isn't a direct way to import from WordPress so far, but there is an open API [0] you could use to move your blog. That's the tack we took for our Hugo import tool [1]: just taking posts from a previous blog, parsing out the metadata, and publishing via the API. For WordPress, you'd also just want to get the posts converted to Markdown for the best experience in WF.
As for exporting your content, yes you can do that at any time. Everything is downloadable as JSON, CSV, or a zipped archive of plain text files.
Write.as - Remote (I'm based in Florida) - Seeking marketer / business developer
Write.as is a simple, privacy-friendly blogging platform made for writers. It's focused on doing just one thing well: helping you get your words published on the open web. It's powered by open source software called WriteFreely, and is part of a suite of interconnected publishing tools that I'm building: Snap.as for photos, Submit.as for submission management, Draft.as for collaboration, and so on.
As a company, we're entirely bootstrapped and founder-owned, and after 6 years, very modestly profitable. But in many ways, we're still very early. Our customers are writers, bloggers, teachers, and authors, plus some companies, publications, and public libraries. There's no "exit" or fundraising potential in sight; just a small, sustainable company I hope to continue running for many decades.
I put most of my focus on building product and supporting current customers, to the detriment of us growing quicker. But there is plenty of room to grow, and I'm looking for someone who can join in a cofounder-like capacity to help move the needle in a way that matches our calm pace and principles [0]. If you're interested, I'd love to hear from you: matt {at} write.as
Yep, there's no way they'll be widespread, and for the limited places they are used, they'll have a human ready to grab the wheel. Largest users might be trucking companies. I think the hype will fade this decade without any fanfare as the reality becomes clearer.
This is how Mastodon works, unfortunately -- it doesn't pull in old posts. But now that you're following the blogs, you'll start seeing any new posts that come in.
Indeed, this is running on our new Teams [0] infrastructure, so HN is giving us some good real-world testing :) Performance issues should be fixed now.
> This is not intended to be a (de)valuation of the software behind the platform and the effort to maintain the platform.
That's the rub. If you were running the service, just speaking practically, how many customers would you need at $10 / €10 per year to pay for the servers? How about to pay your salary? What if you wanted to hire one additional employee?
(Also, WordPress.com shows you ads unless you pay at least $36 / year -- and they're large enough that they could reduce the price to whatever they want, unlike a bootstrapped service starting from $0.)
But there's also the valid point you mention, which is that many people have no more than a passing interest in blogging, and thus might not value a blogging platform at more than the price you suggested. We see this happen with Write.as. But then it might actually make more sense for platforms to charge more -- think about if you were just starting out a workout routine. Would you be more willing to go to the gym regularly if you were paying just $1 per month for a membership, or $40 per month? An investment in the tool helps you invest in the habit.
Customers find these services valuable enough to pay their prices, and services optimize for that audience. But what would be your ideal price for a personal blog?
Yes, it's especially important when these games are used to educate students. Recently came across this [0] very informative talk that discusses some of the same things.
On another note, I'm really excited to see that A Pattern Language was an inspiration for this sim. That seems like a great start!
I don't think it's too much to ask of the general public.
Think of WordPress -- free software you can either run yourself or pay a company to run for you. If you don't like a particular hosting company, you can click a button to export your data, and upload it with a new host -- or with other software that understands the WordPress export format. All of this data handling is manageable by most non-technical people. The process is hardly any different than downloading an email attachment and sending it to someone else, or uploading it somewhere.
It seems to me the biggest problem is either data not being exportable from these services, or the exported data not being machine-readable. If the format is machine-readable, developers can create alternative software that works with it; managed services can then develop around that software; everyday consumers can eventually end up with more choice, freedom, and power.