When I first built Monocle, I modeled it after the "timeline" or "stream" view now common in social networks, but made it possible to subscribe to h-entry feeds as well. The main UI showed a stream of posts, with the full post contents rendered inline, along with the author info and favorite/repost/reply buttons.
While this sounds good in theory, it turns out that I found myself not actually using it regularly, likely for the same reasons I don't often read my Twitter home timeline. Instead, I continued to primarily follow content using my IRC channels.
Last year, I wrote up details on "why I live in IRC", as a way to capture why that interface is more compelling to me than a stream of posts like Monocle and Twitter.
Since I wasn't using it as my primary reader, I wasn't regularly giving it attention, and several bugs have appeared that have been left unfixed. So for now, I feel it's best to officially shut down Monocle, rather than have it be a partially functional example of an IndieWeb reader.
You can expect to see development of Monocle resume in the future, but it will take on a very different form than what it previously was.
