Noodling in the Dark – Lucy Bellwood
I have a richer picture of the group of people in my feed reader than I did of the people I regularly interacted with on social media platforms like Instagram.
Microblogging / Paul Robert Lloyd
Paul weighs up the pros and cons of using silos (like Twitter and Facebook) and using the Indie Web. This bit made me want to stand on my desk and cry, “Oh captain, my captain!”:
“The market has proven that consumers want freely available social networks that are easy to use, and used by everyone else. Only centralised services can provide this, not familiarity with a command line and a succession of acronyms and protocols”, says my not entirely fictional naysayer.
I’m not sure this argument follows. While the human desire to connect and communicate easily with each other has been proven many times over, it’s becoming clear that all-encompassing centralised networks are not the solution. That way lies algorithmically-skewed streams of consciousness, layered upon sordid business models and Californian ideology. Fuck that.
The web is agreement, but that doesn’t mean we agree to use the same websites.
Related links
Indieweb Vs Indie Web - fyr.io
So the human web, the people net, the your-net. Whatever it is called, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it is yours, if you want it. If you’re tired of the conglomerate-net, disgusted by the commercialised web, sick of being the product, allergic to The Algorithm, then you can have something else. Something of your own.
You want to upload your artwork? Write fanfic? World build? Document your developing Sistrum-playing skills? Discuss your experiences slice-of-life style? Experiment with poetry?
Do it.
Use wordpress if you want. Use Blogger. Hell, use Frontpage 98 if you want. Or learn some HTML And CSS and type it all up in notepad.exe. Or just HTML, don’t even bother with the CSS. Just make it yours.
Raw dog the open web!
In our current digital landscape, where a corporate algorithm tells us what to read, watch, drink, eat, wear, smell like, and sound like, human curation of the web is an act of revolution. A simple list of hyperlinks published under a personal domain name is subversive.
The next decade of the web | James’ Coffee Blog
After the last decade, where platforms have emerged as a core constituent of the web on which many rely, it may feel like things cannot change. That the giants are so big that there is no other way. Yet, to give into this feeling – that things can’t change – is not necessary. It is the way it is is not true on the web. We can make change. It’s your web.
theAdhocracy | IndieWebCamp Brighton 2024
An in-depth look at Indie Web Camp Brighton with some suggestions for improving future events. Also, this insightful nugget:
There was something really energising about being with a group of people that had a diverse range of backgrounds, ideas, and interests, but who all shared a specific outlook on one problem space. We definitely didn’t all agree on what the ideal solution to a given problem was, but we were at least approaching topics from a similar starting point, which was great.
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Tinkering with my website and getting inspired at Indie Web Camp Brighton.
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In the margins
Marginalia and annotations on the web.
2022 in numbers
One year on adactio.com, complete with sparklines.