Scribbles: Blogging Made Simple

Scribbles is an upcoming blogging platform from Vincent Ritter, the developer of tinylytics, shoutouts and the Gluon app for micro.blog. The platform isn’t generally available to the public just yet, but I was fortunate enough to be given early access to try it out.

UPDATE 2024-04-22: Scribbles has now launched. You can try it for free with up to 5 blog posts.

I’ve been blogging since 2001 and while it’s gotten easier, it can still be a chore to set up your own blog. You have to choose a CMS (or SSG), choose a web host or other service that will serve your blog, set everything up, design your website, and then you can finally start the hard (fun) part… writing your first post (whew)! Don’t forget about staying up to date with CMS updates and server maintenance.

Scribbles is the opposite of all of that. You just sign up for an account, enter some info about your blog and just start writing by clicking the + Write button. Scribbles takes care of the rest.

Scribbles has a simple and elegant post editor. Note the nice large green “+ Write” button to start a new entry.

The interface is minimal and clean, but has everything you need to start writing a blog entry quickly. There’s nothing to get in your way of just writing. Public facing, Scribbles has a simple but beautifully designed blogging theme. It offers a few options to add customizability for those that want to add a few things like a footer and a byline, but most of these tweaks are tucked away in the settings and are only available if you want them. And of course, if you use any of Ritter’s other services like tinylytics or shoutouts, they’re also bolted into Scribbles settings, so no need to hack them in. There currently aren’t options for adding your own layout, custom CSS or javascript to Scribbles in its current form, but I think for a lot of folks that’s probably fine.

Scribbles has a very clean and minimal interface. Perfect for writing.

Scribbles is a fantastic service, but I’m not giving up on my personal blog just yet. I still really enjoy designing and developing my own website and it allows me to try new things fairly easily. Control and customization is what will probably always keep me wanting to run my own blog. It’s my webdev playground.

So why am I writing about Scribbles? I found Scribbles to be a perfect addition to my personal website and great for posting short updates that are then broadcast to micro.blog, Mastodon and Bluesky via the recently opened EchoFeed service. Because of Scribbles fantastically minimal writing interface, it’s so easy to write and post. I just add text, click publish. Done. I can also the possibilities for adding fun additions to my main website like a photo blog or maybe a music blog that are focused specifically on those things.

However, if you don’t already have a blog, and would like a place to write and share your thoughts with the world of your very own, Scribbles is a great place to do it and so easy for just about anyone to use.

If you’re wondering how committed Ritter is to this service, here are just some of the features that he’s added to Scribbles over the month or so I’ve used it:

• Add your own custom domain to your blog
• Added Statuslog and Shoutouts
• An option to add Letterbird Contact Form
• Export posts as Markdown or HTML
• Reply by email
• Improved URL slugs
• Added an option to use Categories
• Add to EchoFeed button

Scribbles has added a bunch of features in a short time.

Wish List

There are a few things I hope will be added to the Scribbles platform one day, although some of them might go against its ethos of keeping things simple. I do like that Scribbles is minimalistic and easy to use, but I’m sure there are many techy-types out there that would enjoy using the service and would love some of these nerdy additions. Adding some of these features could allow more flexibility and add individuality to the look and feel of each person’s blog. Perhaps Scribbles could add an “Expert” switch that would hide these settings by default, but expose them for anyone who’d like to use them.

• An option to use Markdown/Multi-Markdown in the editor
• Image alt text
• Custom CSS in the <head>
• A selection of different fonts for the blog text
• Theming of some sort so my blog can have it’s own personality
• An API for posting from another app like Drafts
• A way to add search to your posts

From what I can tell, Scribbles will launch soon (as of this writing, the end of April 2024). The service will give you 3 blogs with unlimited posts for $5/month or $50/year. If you want to try the service out before paying, you’ll get 5 posts for free. If you act fast, you might get lucky if you email asking for access today.