It is fun to compare HEY and Micro.blog. They both depend on open web standards on the backend. HEY depends on SMTP while Micro.blog depends on HTTPS/HTML. HEY wants to re-invent the end-user experience while Micro.blog provides a pretty much generic end-user experience. By turning the end-user experience upside down, HEY doesn’t rely on IMAP. This is where some people turns their back to HEY (there may be other reasons, though).

Why Micro.blog. Why Hey.