This is largely a brain dump but there's a point and an idea in here somewhere.. I think. #IndieWeb
https://crashthearcade.com/post/5966/
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"html": "<p>This is largely a brain dump but there's a point and an idea in here somewhere.. I think. <a href=\"https://mstdn.games/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a><br /><a href=\"https://crashthearcade.com/post/5966/\"><span>https://</span><span>crashthearcade.com/post/5966/</span><span></span></a></p>",
"text": "This is largely a brain dump but there's a point and an idea in here somewhere.. I think. #IndieWeb\nhttps://crashthearcade.com/post/5966/"
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"published": "2024-01-13T02:46:35+00:00",
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#Emissary is an #Fediverse client and #RSS reader. It uses page metadata (like #OpenGraph data and #MicroFormats) to make every page on the Interwebs work just like an ActivityStreams document.
It works like a cross between self-hosted #IndieWeb blogs and a Mastodon mega-instance, letting one hosting provider serve many individual sites that pool resources (like shared caches and worker queues) while remaining portable and distinct from one another.
It’s (finally) getting close to ready...
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"html": "<p><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Emissary\">#<span>Emissary</span></a> is an <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Fediverse\">#<span>Fediverse</span></a> client and <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/RSS\">#<span>RSS</span></a> reader. It uses page metadata (like <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/OpenGraph\">#<span>OpenGraph</span></a> data and <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/MicroFormats\">#<span>MicroFormats</span></a>) to make every page on the Interwebs work just like an ActivityStreams document.</p><p>It works like a cross between self-hosted <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> blogs and a Mastodon mega-instance, letting one hosting provider serve many individual sites that pool resources (like shared caches and worker queues) while remaining portable and distinct from one another.</p><p>It\u2019s (finally) getting close to ready...</p>",
"text": "#Emissary is an #Fediverse client and #RSS reader. It uses page metadata (like #OpenGraph data and #MicroFormats) to make every page on the Interwebs work just like an ActivityStreams document.It works like a cross between self-hosted #IndieWeb blogs and a Mastodon mega-instance, letting one hosting provider serve many individual sites that pool resources (like shared caches and worker queues) while remaining portable and distinct from one another.It\u2019s (finally) getting close to ready..."
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"published": "2024-01-12T23:55:45+00:00",
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"published": "2024-01-12T21:45:02+00:00",
"url": "https://werd.io/2024/where-is-all-of-the-fediverse",
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"Technology"
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"https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/who-hosts-the-fediverse-instances"
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"name": "Where is all of the fediverse?",
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"text": "A nice investigation into who actually hosts fediverse instances.\nI've been in a few situations where I've had to fend off a DDoS originating from Hetzner servers, and it's just now dawning on me: what if those weren't malicious attacks but were actually a post going viral on the fediverse? #Technology",
"html": "<p>A nice investigation into who actually hosts fediverse instances.</p>\n<p>I've been in a few situations where I've had to fend off a DDoS originating from Hetzner servers, and it's just now dawning on me: what if those weren't malicious attacks but were actually a post going viral on the fediverse? <a href=\"https://werd.io/tag/Technology\" class=\"p-category\">#Technology</a></p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Ben Werdmuller",
"url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
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Can we just make a new #indieweb search engine that uses tags and requires people submit their own site to be a part of it?
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"html": "<p>Can we just make a new <a href=\"https://social.lol/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> search engine that uses tags and requires people submit their own site to be a part of it?</p>",
"text": "Can we just make a new #indieweb search engine that uses tags and requires people submit their own site to be a part of it?"
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"published": "2024-01-12T21:22:54+00:00",
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Made layout changes to my html site. Progress. Hopefully there are not too many broken links. Switched font to Trebuchet MS (Comic Sans was a contender).
#neocities #indieweb #blogging
https://jasonmcfadden.neocities.org
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"html": "<p>Made layout changes to my html site. Progress. Hopefully there are not too many broken links. Switched font to Trebuchet MS (Comic Sans was a contender).</p><p><a href=\"https://mastodon.world/tags/neocities\">#<span>neocities</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.world/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.world/tags/blogging\">#<span>blogging</span></a> </p><p><a href=\"https://jasonmcfadden.neocities.org\"><span>https://</span><span>jasonmcfadden.neocities.org</span><span></span></a></p>",
"text": "Made layout changes to my html site. Progress. Hopefully there are not too many broken links. Switched font to Trebuchet MS (Comic Sans was a contender).#neocities #indieweb #blogging https://jasonmcfadden.neocities.org"
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"published": "2024-01-12T21:14:51+00:00",
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Finally figured out why I hadn’t had much luck with edited posts on Micro.blog making their way to Mastodon. Mastodon requires an “updated” date, not just “published”. Fine, but these are the little things that make interoperability in the fediverse essentially trial and error.
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"url": "https://www.manton.org/2024/01/12/finally-figured-out.html",
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"html": "<p>Finally figured out why I hadn\u2019t had much luck with edited posts on Micro.blog making their way to Mastodon. Mastodon requires an \u201cupdated\u201d date, not just \u201cpublished\u201d. Fine, but these are the little things that make interoperability in the fediverse essentially trial and error.</p>",
"text": "Finally figured out why I hadn\u2019t had much luck with edited posts on Micro.blog making their way to Mastodon. Mastodon requires an \u201cupdated\u201d date, not just \u201cpublished\u201d. Fine, but these are the little things that make interoperability in the fediverse essentially trial and error."
},
"published": "2024-01-12T14:46:45-06:00",
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "39975565",
"_source": "12",
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"name": "@gmgall",
"url": "https://ursal.zone/@gmgall",
"photo": null
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"url": "https://ursal.zone/@gmgall/111744621355678007",
"content": {
"html": "<p>The <a href=\"https://ursal.zone/tags/web\">#<span>web</span></a> is fantastic</p><p><a href=\"https://rknight.me/blog/the-web-is-fantastic/\"><span>https://</span><span>rknight.me/blog/the-web-is-fan</span><span>tastic/</span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://ursal.zone/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://ursal.zone/tags/RSS\">#<span>RSS</span></a></p>",
"text": "The #web is fantastichttps://rknight.me/blog/the-web-is-fantastic/#IndieWeb #RSS"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T19:26:46+00:00",
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"published": "2024-01-12T13:50:00+01:00",
"url": "https://www.jeremycherfas.net/blog/podcasting-and-the-fediverse",
"name": "Podcasting and the Fediverse",
"content": {
"text": "This is Part I of a two-part rant about podcasting. It was triggered by Tim Chambers linking to the summary podcast stats at Listen Notes. This part asks what the fediverse might do for podcasting. Part II will look back in an attempt to understand how we (I) got here.\n\n\u201dThere are at least 3,...\n\t\t\t There\u2019s more \u27a2",
"html": "<p>This is Part I of a two-part rant about podcasting. It was triggered by Tim Chambers linking to the <a href=\"https://www.listennotes.com/podcast-stats/\">summary podcast stats at Listen Notes</a>. This part asks what the fediverse might do for podcasting. Part II will look back in an attempt to understand how we (I) got here.</p>\n\n<h2>\u201dThere are at least 3,</h2>...\n\t\t\t <span style=\"float:right;font-size:smaller;\"><a href=\"https://www.jeremycherfas.net/blog/podcasting-and-the-fediverse\">There\u2019s more \u27a2</a></span>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Jeremy Cherfas",
"url": "https://jeremycherfas.net",
"photo": "https://www.jeremycherfas.net/user/themes/tailwind/images/zoot.jpg"
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a list of fediverse accounts dicovered by StreetPass
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"html": "a list of fediverse accounts dicovered by StreetPass",
"text": "a list of fediverse accounts dicovered by StreetPass"
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I just thought of an idea for my next vlog. I doubt it will be a topic I can cover in less than fifteen minutes. But after reading a thread about what it means to be in the #IndieWeb I felt like I can give my own perspective as someone who wrote their first web page back in 1995 and what I think the future of the web could (and maybe should) look like in the age of social media and the emerging #fediverse
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"html": "<p>I just thought of an idea for my next vlog. I doubt it will be a topic I can cover in less than fifteen minutes. But after reading a thread about what it means to be in the <a href=\"https://mastodon.surazal.net/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> I felt like I can give my own perspective as someone who wrote their first web page back in 1995 and what I think the future of the web could (and maybe should) look like in the age of social media and the emerging <a href=\"https://mastodon.surazal.net/tags/fediverse\">#<span>fediverse</span></a></p>",
"text": "I just thought of an idea for my next vlog. I doubt it will be a topic I can cover in less than fifteen minutes. But after reading a thread about what it means to be in the #IndieWeb I felt like I can give my own perspective as someone who wrote their first web page back in 1995 and what I think the future of the web could (and maybe should) look like in the age of social media and the emerging #fediverse"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T17:20:14+00:00",
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For a long time, my website was a simple page with contact information. It served me well but recently, I started itching for something more. I took some time during the past month to make it into something more personal. I'm seeing this as an opportunity to practice writing, introspection and just sharing what I'm up to, which doesn't always come very naturally to me.
https://pboivin.ca
#PersonalWebsite #SmallWeb #IndieWeb #Blogging #PHP
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"html": "<p>For a long time, my website was a simple page with contact information. It served me well but recently, I started itching for something more. I took some time during the past month to make it into something more personal. I'm seeing this as an opportunity to practice writing, introspection and just sharing what I'm up to, which doesn't always come very naturally to me.</p><p><a href=\"https://pboivin.ca\"><span>https://</span><span>pboivin.ca</span><span></span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://phpc.social/tags/PersonalWebsite\">#<span>PersonalWebsite</span></a> <a href=\"https://phpc.social/tags/SmallWeb\">#<span>SmallWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://phpc.social/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://phpc.social/tags/Blogging\">#<span>Blogging</span></a> <a href=\"https://phpc.social/tags/PHP\">#<span>PHP</span></a></p>",
"text": "For a long time, my website was a simple page with contact information. It served me well but recently, I started itching for something more. I took some time during the past month to make it into something more personal. I'm seeing this as an opportunity to practice writing, introspection and just sharing what I'm up to, which doesn't always come very naturally to me.https://pboivin.ca#PersonalWebsite #SmallWeb #IndieWeb #Blogging #PHP"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T16:01:16+00:00",
"post-type": "note",
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{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-01-12T14:46:21+00:00",
"url": "https://werd.io/2024/running-your-own-site-is-painful-hosting-nazis-is-worse",
"name": "Running your own site is painful. Hosting Nazis is worse",
"content": {
"text": "I\u2019ve spent much of my career telling organizations that they should publish in a space that they control, on their own domain name.My usual argument is that it shields you from major changes in company policy, or even from the platform you\u2019re depending on from going out of business. If you\u2019ve built a media business on a platform knowing that it\u2019s been designed as a place for text-heavy media businesses, but one day it decides it\u2019s going to be more profitable if it becomes a place for 3D immersive video, and your whole audience is locked into that platform, your media business is in trouble.Publishing on your own site and your own domain name avoids that issue: you have full control over your underlying platform, and because you can change where your domain name points to, you can change your platform without losing any of your audience. In terms of Michael Porter\u2019s Five Forces, this tactic reduces the power of suppliers \u2014 the platform that underpins your site \u2014 to dictate the terms of your business.The trouble is, running your own site isn\u2019t easy. If you\u2019re a developer, you probably have the skills and knowledge to select an underlying platform, install it on a server, secure your infrastructure, customize it, and optimize it for discovery and sharing. If you\u2019re a writer, you might not \u2014 and even if you are a developer, if you\u2019re trying to start a site from scratch, all that technical administration is time taken away from working on all the stuff that makes your site special. Having a well-running platform for your site is table stakes; the core value of any site is the content itself. As any entrepreneur knows, you should spend as much time as possible on your core value: focusing on the thing that makes you unique and special will give you a better chance of success.All of this doesn\u2019t mean that the characteristics of a platform aren\u2019t important. They\u2019re very important, and can make or break a media startup, which is why Substack seemed like such a good choice for a great many people. It had everything: integrated payments, a solid recommendation engine that accelerated subscriber growth, support for using your own domain name, customized branding, optimizations for search engines and social sharing, and it just felt really good to use.On a technical level, Substack was clearly a very good choice for independent writers trying to make a living on their own. It also stood in contrast to Medium, which had similar goals but was firmly optimized around helping people earn a living from individual articles even if they didn\u2019t have a built-in audience (I\u2019ll say more about Medium in a minute). Both were free to get started on, relieving writers from the technical or financial burden of setting up their own platform, but each had a different focus. On Medium, great pieces stood alone, so you could gain an audience for a thought even if you didn\u2019t have a following; on Substack, you could build a following for your ongoing work.Which is why it was incredibly disappointing when it became clear that the platform actively embraced and funded bigots. First came the transphobes, which a few people made a fuss about, but not enough. (If we rewrote Martin Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s famous poem for today, trans people would be the first line.) Then, most recently, it became clear that Substack was rife with actual flag-waving Nazis.As Casey Newton pointed out in Platformer:To be clear, there are a lot more than six bad publications on Substack: our analysis found dozens of far-right publications advocating for the great replacement theory and other violent ideologies. [\u2026] The company\u2019s edgelord branding ensures that the fringes will continue to arrive and set up shop, and its infrastructure creates the possibility that those publications will grow quickly. That\u2019s what matters.That\u2019s what made it untenable for me and a great many other publishers. Platformer, Garbage Day, Citation Needed, and ParentData are some of the titles that have moved away (or announced that they\u2019re moving away) over the last week, and these are the high-profile tip of a much larger iceberg.So where should writers go?Unfortunately, I think a platform that\u2019s completely right as an alternative to Substack doesn\u2019t exist, which I\u2019ll talk about in a moment. Where writers have been going fall into a few buckets:\nButtondown, an independent newsletter platform\n\nGhost, a blogging platform with built-in support for newsletters and paid subscriptions (sometimes through Ryan Singel\u2019s excellent Outpost service)\n\nWordPress, the blogging platform that powers roughly a third of the web (but has poor support for newsletters and paid subscriptions)\nBiting the bullet and developing or self-hosting their own thing\nMy approach, because I\u2019ve always had my own site running on Known, has been to move my newsletter to Buttondown. It\u2019s worked really well for me, but these are all good approaches.I\u2019ve been a bit surprised to not hear about people moving to\u00a0Medium, which has been undergoing a quiet transformation under Tony Stubblebine\u2019s leadership over the last year. It\u2019s certainly worth considering: revenue is up, the platform has reorganized itself around publishers and followings, it supports custom domains, writers can take their content and subscribers with them if they choose to leave, and the strategic thrash of the mid-2010s is gone. Tony and his team are genuinely hunkering down and doing the work to support writers.A big difference with Medium is that the audience\u2019s financial relationship is with the platform rather than a writer. On Substack, you subscribed to outlets like Platformer and Citation Needed individually; on Medium, you\u2019re paying one of two tiers to access the full network. For readers, that\u2019s clearly far better: you\u2019re getting a world of writing for the same flat price. For writers, getting frictionless access to Medium\u2019s aggregate paying userbase may help grow followers; it is clearly true, though, that you can\u2019t bring your paid customer relationships with you if you choose to leave. On Substack, those relationships are made directly with you and depend on you having your own account with Stripe, which means you can leave and keep servicing your subscriptions without asking anyone to re-enter their payment details.In order to really support independent media startups, particularly individual writers looking to make money from their work on their own, there are three categories of service that I wish existed:A fully-managed direct relationship platform for writersAny writer should be able to sign up to a service, configure their platform, and begin selling their writing directly to an audience without worrying about their writing showing up next to, or appearing to endorse, hate speech. It should be beautiful, easy to use, and friction-free.They should be able to own their relationship with their audience to the point where if they choose to change platforms, they can take their audience with them and seamlessly start writing somewhere else. They should never have to deal with technical configuration: everything should just work. And each writer should be able to gain from network effects as the platform grows, allowing them to gain a following and build revenue more quickly.That\u2019s almost Medium, aside from the direct relationships. That\u2019s almost Ghost, aside from the network effects. So close!Indie recommendationsA lot of the focus of the indieweb and of the fediverse has been to provide an independent alternative to social media. I have no criticism of that approach! We need that! But there\u2019s also something I\u2019d like to see that goes beyond it.I think we\u2019ve assumed that social media is how we learn about new websites and articles. That\u2019s a user experience pattern that has been inherited directly from Twitter and Facebook, which always wanted to be the way people discovered news and information. When I built the first version of Known, I had the idea of owning your own versions of social media platforms in mind.Long before social networks, personal websites had links to other sites the authors enjoyed. Sometimes it was just called a links page. Blogs called them the blogroll. Substack\u2019s version of this was for an author to recommend other newsletters, so when someone subscribed, they would also be asked if they\u2019d want to subscribe to these other author-endorsed outlets. It was a superb way for writers to rapidly build a following outside of their own established networks.The following requires some underlying protocol work, but here\u2019s how it would work from the user side:As a user, I want to subscribe to an author.\nI visit their site and click to subscribe, entering my details.\nThe site shows me a selection of other blogs or newsletters the author recommends.\nI agree to subscribe to those. (Not as a paying subscriber, but as someone who will receive new content as it is published.)\nI am instantly fully subscribed, without having to enter any further information on those third party sites.\nThe authors of those sites know that they gained new subscribers that were referred from the recommending site.\nThe net result: every author can have the freedom and ownership of publishing on their own site, but with the network effects of a closed network.Of course, even without this infrastructure, any site can already create a links page or a blogroll. I\u2019m actively working on that.Self-hosting that works like an iPhoneYou should be able to pay for server hosting and have access to a fully-managed App Store that, just like an iPhone, lets you install new services with one click and keeps your software up-to-date. Some of those services will be free; some will be paid-for. It should be no more complicated than that, with zero exposure to the underlying server processes and scripts.Shared hosting still hasn\u2019t really evolved since the nineties: it\u2019s a world of (S)FTP access, dubious control panels that don\u2019t do much to help the user, and appalling user experiences. Virtual hosting is newer and more powerful, but you need to be a very sophisticated user to deal with containers, package managers, and so on. The former are designed for hobbyists; the latter are designed for software engineering teams. A self-hosting environment that\u2019s optimized for non-technical individuals to own their own websites and data does not exist.In summaryWe do need a way to support great writing. It\u2019s how we learn about the world, quite often in a way that helps inform our democratic decisions and the way we see the society around us. A world where everyone is writing for free and independent journalism has no means of financial support is not tenable or desirable, in my opinion.I also believe that not providing financial support to literal Nazis is non-negotiable. I can\u2019t believe that\u2019s an argument we even have to make. This isn\u2019t ambiguous: Nazis are bad.The indie web should be a place where independent writers can thrive. I believe it will be. We just need a little bit more infrastructure: network effects, easy payments, removing the need for non-technical people to get involved in technical administration. The Ghost ecosystem in particular has shown us that there\u2019s a great opportunity for this to be done well for writers.Unlike many open source / indie web folks, I also don\u2019t draw a hard line about hosted services like Medium, given the right features. The important thing for me is that writers can write and be heard. Anything that makes that easier \u2014 while not, again, literally funding Nazis \u2014 is fantastic in my book. The writing is what matters. Letting people connect and learn from each other \u2014 reaching people with ideas \u2014 is what the web is all about. The trick is giving them the tools and freedom to do that sustainably, on their own terms.",
"html": "<p><img src=\"https://werd.io/file/65a1509752b7c0d9b9041632/thumb.jpg\" alt=\"A stock photograph of someone writing on a laptop\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" /></p><p>I\u2019ve spent much of my career telling organizations that they should publish in a space that they control, on their own domain name.</p><p>My usual argument is that it shields you from major changes in company policy, or even from the platform you\u2019re depending on from going out of business. If you\u2019ve built a media business on a platform knowing that it\u2019s been designed as a place for text-heavy media businesses, but one day it decides it\u2019s going to be more profitable if it becomes a place for 3D immersive video, and your whole audience is locked into that platform, your media business is in trouble.</p><p>Publishing on your own site and your own domain name avoids that issue: you have full control over your underlying platform, and because you can change where your domain name points to, you can change your platform without losing any of your audience. In terms of <a href=\"https://www.isc.hbs.edu/strategy/business-strategy/Pages/the-five-forces.aspx\">Michael Porter\u2019s Five Forces</a>, this tactic reduces the power of suppliers \u2014 the platform that underpins your site \u2014 to dictate the terms of your business.</p><p>The trouble is, running your own site isn\u2019t easy. If you\u2019re a developer, you probably have the skills and knowledge to select an underlying platform, install it on a server, secure your infrastructure, customize it, and optimize it for discovery and sharing. If you\u2019re a writer, you might not \u2014 and even if you <em>are</em> a developer, if you\u2019re trying to start a site from scratch, all that technical administration is time taken away from working on all the stuff that makes your site special. Having a well-running platform for your site is table stakes; the core value of any site is the content itself. As any entrepreneur knows, you should spend as much time as possible on your core value: focusing on the thing that makes you unique and special will give you a better chance of success.</p><p>All of this doesn\u2019t mean that the characteristics of a platform aren\u2019t important. They\u2019re <em>very</em> important, and can make or break a media startup, which is why Substack seemed like such a good choice for a great many people. It had everything: integrated payments, a solid recommendation engine that accelerated subscriber growth, support for using your own domain name, customized branding, optimizations for search engines and social sharing, and it just felt really good to use.</p><p>On a technical level, Substack was clearly a very good choice for independent writers trying to make a living on their own. It also stood in contrast to Medium, which had similar goals but was firmly optimized around helping people earn a living from individual articles even if they didn\u2019t have a built-in audience (I\u2019ll say more about Medium in a minute). Both were free to get started on, relieving writers from the technical or financial burden of setting up their own platform, but each had a different focus. On Medium, great pieces stood alone, so you could gain an audience for a thought even if you didn\u2019t have a following; on Substack, you could build a following for your ongoing work.</p><p>Which is why it was incredibly disappointing when it became clear that the platform actively embraced and funded bigots. First came the transphobes, which a few people made a fuss about, but not enough. (If we rewrote <a href=\"https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists\">Martin Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s famous poem</a> for today, trans people would be the first line.) Then, most recently, it became clear that Substack was rife with actual flag-waving Nazis.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.platformer.news/p/why-platformer-is-leaving-substack\">As Casey Newton pointed out in Platformer</a>:</p><blockquote><p>To be clear, there are a lot more than six bad publications on Substack: our analysis found dozens of far-right publications advocating for the great replacement theory and other violent ideologies. [\u2026] The company\u2019s edgelord branding ensures that the fringes will continue to arrive and set up shop, and its infrastructure creates the possibility that those publications will grow quickly. That\u2019s what matters.</p></blockquote><p>That\u2019s what made it untenable for me and a great many other publishers. Platformer, Garbage Day, Citation Needed, and ParentData are some of the titles that have moved away (or announced that they\u2019re moving away) over the last week, and these are the high-profile tip of a much larger iceberg.</p><p>So where should writers go?</p><p>Unfortunately, I think a platform that\u2019s completely right as an alternative to Substack doesn\u2019t exist, which I\u2019ll talk about in a moment. Where writers <em>have</em> been going fall into a few buckets:</p><ul><li>\n<a href=\"https://buttondown.email\">Buttondown</a>, an independent newsletter platform</li>\n<li>\n<a href=\"https://ghost.org\">Ghost</a>, a blogging platform with built-in support for newsletters and paid subscriptions (sometimes through Ryan Singel\u2019s excellent <a href=\"https://outpost.pub/\">Outpost</a> service)</li>\n<li>\n<a href=\"https://wordpress.org\">WordPress</a>, the blogging platform that powers roughly a third of the web (but has poor support for newsletters and paid subscriptions)</li>\n<li>Biting the bullet and developing or self-hosting their own thing</li>\n</ul><p>My approach, because I\u2019ve always had my own site running on <a href=\"https://withknown.com\">Known</a>, has been to move my newsletter to Buttondown. It\u2019s worked really well for me, but these are all good approaches.</p><p>I\u2019ve been a bit surprised to not hear about people moving to\u00a0<a href=\"https://medium.com\">Medium</a>, which has been undergoing a quiet transformation under Tony Stubblebine\u2019s leadership over the last year. It\u2019s certainly worth considering: revenue is up, the platform has reorganized itself around publishers and followings, it supports custom domains, writers <em>can</em> take their content and subscribers with them if they choose to leave, and the strategic thrash of the mid-2010s is gone. Tony and his team are genuinely hunkering down and doing the work to support writers.</p><p>A big difference with Medium is that the audience\u2019s financial relationship is with the platform rather than a writer. On Substack, you subscribed to outlets like Platformer and Citation Needed individually; on Medium, <a href=\"https://medium.com/membership\">you\u2019re paying one of two tiers to access the full network</a>. For readers, that\u2019s clearly far better: you\u2019re getting a world of writing for the same flat price. For writers, getting frictionless access to Medium\u2019s aggregate paying userbase may help grow followers; it is clearly true, though, that you can\u2019t bring your paid customer relationships with you if you choose to leave. On Substack, those relationships are made directly with you and depend on you having your own account with <a href=\"https://stripe.com/\">Stripe</a>, which means you can leave and keep servicing your subscriptions without asking anyone to re-enter their payment details.</p><p>In order to really support independent media startups, particularly individual writers looking to make money from their work on their own, there are three categories of service that I wish existed:</p><h3>A fully-managed direct relationship platform for writers</h3><p>Any writer should be able to sign up to a service, configure their platform, and begin selling their writing directly to an audience without worrying about their writing showing up next to, or appearing to endorse, hate speech. It should be beautiful, easy to use, and friction-free.</p><p>They should be able to own their relationship with their audience to the point where if they choose to change platforms, they can take their audience with them and seamlessly start writing somewhere else. They should never have to deal with technical configuration: everything should just work. And each writer should be able to gain from network effects as the platform grows, allowing them to gain a following and build revenue more quickly.</p><p>That\u2019s almost Medium, aside from the direct relationships. That\u2019s almost Ghost, aside from the network effects. So close!</p><h3>Indie recommendations</h3><p>A lot of the focus of the <a href=\"https://indieweb.org\">indieweb</a> and of the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse\">fediverse</a> has been to provide an independent alternative to social media. I have no criticism of that approach! We need that! But there\u2019s also something I\u2019d like to see that goes beyond it.</p><p>I think we\u2019ve assumed that social media is how we learn about new websites and articles. That\u2019s a user experience pattern that has been inherited directly from Twitter and Facebook, which always wanted to be the way people discovered news and information. When I built the first version of Known, I had the idea of owning your own versions of social media platforms in mind.</p><p>Long before social networks, personal websites had links to other sites the authors enjoyed. Sometimes it was just called a links page. Blogs called them the <em>blogroll</em>. Substack\u2019s version of this was for an author to recommend other newsletters, so when someone subscribed, they would also be asked if they\u2019d want to subscribe to these other author-endorsed outlets. It was a superb way for writers to rapidly build a following outside of their own established networks.</p><p>The following requires some underlying protocol work, but here\u2019s how it would work from the user side:</p><ul><li>As a user, I want to subscribe to an author.</li>\n<li>I visit their site and click to subscribe, entering my details.</li>\n<li>The site shows me a selection of other blogs or newsletters the author recommends.</li>\n<li>I agree to subscribe to those. (Not as a <em>paying</em> subscriber, but as someone who will receive new content as it is published.)</li>\n<li>I am instantly fully subscribed, without having to enter any further information on those third party sites.</li>\n<li>The authors of those sites know that they gained new subscribers that were referred from the recommending site.</li>\n</ul><p>The net result: every author can have the freedom and ownership of publishing on their own site, but with the network effects of a closed network.</p><p>Of course, even without this infrastructure, any site can already create a links page or a blogroll. I\u2019m actively working on that.</p><h3>Self-hosting that works like an iPhone</h3><p>You should be able to pay for server hosting and have access to a fully-managed App Store that, just like an iPhone, lets you install new services with one click and keeps your software up-to-date. Some of those services will be free; some will be paid-for. It should be no more complicated than that, with zero exposure to the underlying server processes and scripts.</p><p>Shared hosting <em>still</em> hasn\u2019t really evolved since the nineties: it\u2019s a world of (S)FTP access, dubious control panels that don\u2019t do much to help the user, and appalling user experiences. <em>Virtual</em> hosting is newer and more powerful, but you need to be a very sophisticated user to deal with containers, package managers, and so on. The former are designed for hobbyists; the latter are designed for software engineering teams. A self-hosting environment that\u2019s optimized for non-technical individuals to own their own websites and data does not exist.</p><h3>In summary</h3><p>We do need a way to support great writing. It\u2019s how we learn about the world, quite often in a way that helps inform our democratic decisions and the way we see the society around us. A world where everyone is writing for free and independent journalism has no means of financial support is not tenable or desirable, in my opinion.</p><p>I also believe that not providing financial support to literal Nazis is non-negotiable. I can\u2019t believe that\u2019s an argument we even have to make. This isn\u2019t ambiguous: Nazis are bad.</p><p>The indie web should be a place where independent writers can thrive. I believe it will be. We just need a little bit more infrastructure: network effects, easy payments, removing the need for non-technical people to get involved in technical administration. The Ghost ecosystem in particular has shown us that there\u2019s a great opportunity for this to be done well for writers.</p><p>Unlike many open source / indie web folks, I also don\u2019t draw a hard line about hosted services like Medium, given the right features. The important thing for me is that writers can write and be heard. Anything that makes that easier \u2014 while not, again, <em>literally funding Nazis</em> \u2014 is fantastic in my book. The writing is what matters. Letting people connect and learn from each other \u2014 reaching people with ideas \u2014 is what the web is all about. The trick is giving them the tools and freedom to do that sustainably, on their own terms.</p>"
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Yet another stellar release by Rauthy OIDC:
https://github.com/sebadob/rauthy/releases/tag/v0.20.0
Encrypted backups automation · bot & spam protection with spow · separate users cache.
I'm building a new kind of #IndieWeb app on top of the Rauthy identity layer together with a former colleague from Discourse: https://writing.exchange/@erlend/110015148048407614
#rust #opensource
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"html": "<p>Yet another stellar release by Rauthy OIDC:</p><p><a href=\"https://github.com/sebadob/rauthy/releases/tag/v0.20.0\"><span>https://</span><span>github.com/sebadob/rauthy/rele</span><span>ases/tag/v0.20.0</span></a></p><p>Encrypted backups automation \u00b7 bot & spam protection with spow \u00b7 separate users cache.</p><p>I'm building a new kind of <a href=\"https://writing.exchange/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> app on top of the Rauthy identity layer together with a former colleague from Discourse: <a href=\"https://writing.exchange/@erlend/110015148048407614\"><span>https://</span><span>writing.exchange/@erlend/11001</span><span>5148048407614</span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://writing.exchange/tags/rust\">#<span>rust</span></a> <a href=\"https://writing.exchange/tags/opensource\">#<span>opensource</span></a></p>",
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"published": "2024-01-12T12:59:34+00:00",
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New blog about the Indie Web, from an absolute idiot's perspective and the horrors of the commercial internet.
http://matthewsmyth.co.uk/blog/but-seriously-an-idiots-guide-to-the-indie-web/
#Blog #SelfHosting #IndieWeb
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"html": "<p>New blog about the Indie Web, from an absolute idiot's perspective and the horrors of the commercial internet.</p><p><a href=\"http://matthewsmyth.co.uk/blog/but-seriously-an-idiots-guide-to-the-indie-web/\"><span>http://</span><span>matthewsmyth.co.uk/blog/but-se</span><span>riously-an-idiots-guide-to-the-indie-web/</span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://mxtthxw.art/tags/Blog\">#<span>Blog</span></a> <a href=\"https://mxtthxw.art/tags/SelfHosting\">#<span>SelfHosting</span></a> <a href=\"https://mxtthxw.art/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a></p>",
"text": "New blog about the Indie Web, from an absolute idiot's perspective and the horrors of the commercial internet.http://matthewsmyth.co.uk/blog/but-seriously-an-idiots-guide-to-the-indie-web/#Blog #SelfHosting #IndieWeb"
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"published": "2024-01-12T11:24:15+00:00",
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The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again
The internet seems ripe for change, and millions of people seem poised to connect in new ways, as they reconsider their relationship to technology.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/
#anildash #beautifulweb #indieweb
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"html": "<p>The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again<br />The internet seems ripe for change, and millions of people seem poised to connect in new ways, as they reconsider their relationship to technology.<br /><a href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/\"><span>https://www.</span><span>rollingstone.com/culture/cultu</span><span>re-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/</span></a><br /><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/anildash\">#<span>anildash</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/beautifulweb\">#<span>beautifulweb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a></p>",
"text": "The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again\nThe internet seems ripe for change, and millions of people seem poised to connect in new ways, as they reconsider their relationship to technology.\nhttps://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/\n#anildash #beautifulweb #indieweb"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T09:10:00+00:00",
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "39969736",
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@shawnhooper @caseynewton Web is for publishing (and commenting), authoring (and backup) should be done only on your system.
#indieWeb #StaticGenerators
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"name": "@mcepl",
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"html": "<p><span class=\"h-card\"><a class=\"u-url\" href=\"https://fosstodon.org/@shawnhooper\">@<span>shawnhooper</span></a></span> <span class=\"h-card\"><a class=\"u-url\" href=\"https://mastodon.social/@caseynewton\">@<span>caseynewton</span></a></span> Web is for publishing (and commenting), authoring (and backup) should be done only on your system.</p><p><a href=\"https://floss.social/tags/indieWeb\">#<span>indieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://floss.social/tags/StaticGenerators\">#<span>StaticGenerators</span></a></p>",
"text": "@shawnhooper @caseynewton Web is for publishing (and commenting), authoring (and backup) should be done only on your system.#indieWeb #StaticGenerators"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T08:36:52+00:00",
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "39969426",
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@jcrabapple #Microdotblog is the best mix of simple UX and powerful #indieweb publishing I've found. cc: @manton
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"type": "entry",
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"name": "@tchambers",
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"content": {
"html": "<p><span class=\"h-card\"><a class=\"u-url\" href=\"https://dmv.community/@jcrabapple\">@<span>jcrabapple</span></a></span> <a href=\"https://indieweb.social/tags/Microdotblog\">#<span>Microdotblog</span></a> is the best mix of simple UX and powerful <a href=\"https://indieweb.social/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> publishing I've found. cc: <span class=\"h-card\"><a class=\"u-url\" href=\"https://manton.org/activitypub/manton\">@<span>manton</span></a></span></p>",
"text": "@jcrabapple #Microdotblog is the best mix of simple UX and powerful #indieweb publishing I've found. cc: @manton"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T03:13:35+00:00",
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"content": {
"html": "<p><a href=\"https://dmv.community/tags/ActivityPub\">#<span>ActivityPub</span></a> Is To The <a href=\"https://dmv.community/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> As A.I. Is To Silicon Valley?</p><p><a href=\"https://bix.blog/2024/01/11/activitypub-is-to-the-indieweb-as-a-i-is-to-silicon-valley/\"><span>https://</span><span>bix.blog/2024/01/11/activitypu</span><span>b-is-to-the-indieweb-as-a-i-is-to-silicon-valley/</span></a></p>",
"text": "#ActivityPub Is To The #IndieWeb As A.I. Is To Silicon Valley?https://bix.blog/2024/01/11/activitypub-is-to-the-indieweb-as-a-i-is-to-silicon-valley/"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T02:59:20+00:00",
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"_id": "39967807",
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Finally built out a dark mode theme I'm reasonably happy with and made it work nice in Nuxt 3. I'm building the habit of writing up any work I've done, so here's a full breakdown of the process: https://seanedevane.com/blog/dark-mode-nuxt-3
#indieweb #frontend #darkmode #nuxt3 #nuxt #vue
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"html": "<p>Finally built out a dark mode theme I'm reasonably happy with and made it work nice in Nuxt 3. I'm building the habit of writing up any work I've done, so here's a full breakdown of the process: <a href=\"https://seanedevane.com/blog/dark-mode-nuxt-3\"><span>https://</span><span>seanedevane.com/blog/dark-mode</span><span>-nuxt-3</span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://infosec.exchange/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> <a href=\"https://infosec.exchange/tags/frontend\">#<span>frontend</span></a> <a href=\"https://infosec.exchange/tags/darkmode\">#<span>darkmode</span></a> <a href=\"https://infosec.exchange/tags/nuxt3\">#<span>nuxt3</span></a> <a href=\"https://infosec.exchange/tags/nuxt\">#<span>nuxt</span></a> <a href=\"https://infosec.exchange/tags/vue\">#<span>vue</span></a></p>",
"text": "Finally built out a dark mode theme I'm reasonably happy with and made it work nice in Nuxt 3. I'm building the habit of writing up any work I've done, so here's a full breakdown of the process: https://seanedevane.com/blog/dark-mode-nuxt-3#indieweb #frontend #darkmode #nuxt3 #nuxt #vue"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T02:54:29+00:00",
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Tonight is one of those rare instances where my social feed seems to coalesce around one issue.
@caseynewton has pulled Platformer from #Substack, who are finding out you can’t casually walk back a position of supporting Nazis.
Let this be a lesson. Control where you publish. Tools like WordPress, Ghost, or even just plain HTML allow us to publish without the risk of getting trapped by companies who will take money from anyone, even if they shouldn’t.
#IndieWeb #blogging #fediverse
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"html": "<p>Tonight is one of those rare instances where my social feed seems to coalesce around one issue. </p><p><span class=\"h-card\"><a class=\"u-url\" href=\"https://mastodon.social/@caseynewton\">@<span>caseynewton</span></a></span> has pulled Platformer from <a href=\"https://fosstodon.org/tags/Substack\">#<span>Substack</span></a>, who are finding out you can\u2019t casually walk back a position of supporting Nazis. </p><p>Let this be a lesson. Control where you publish. Tools like WordPress, Ghost, or even just plain HTML allow us to publish without the risk of getting trapped by companies who will take money from anyone, even if they shouldn\u2019t. </p><p><a href=\"https://fosstodon.org/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://fosstodon.org/tags/blogging\">#<span>blogging</span></a> <a href=\"https://fosstodon.org/tags/fediverse\">#<span>fediverse</span></a></p>",
"text": "Tonight is one of those rare instances where my social feed seems to coalesce around one issue. @caseynewton has pulled Platformer from #Substack, who are finding out you can\u2019t casually walk back a position of supporting Nazis. Let this be a lesson. Control where you publish. Tools like WordPress, Ghost, or even just plain HTML allow us to publish without the risk of getting trapped by companies who will take money from anyone, even if they shouldn\u2019t. #IndieWeb #blogging #fediverse"
},
"published": "2024-01-12T02:39:27+00:00",
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