Robb Knight
Maker of web things, blogger, podcaster, and pizzaiolo. Cat dad and human dad.
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Reading the title you might be thinking "Yeah no shit Robb of course the web[1] is fantastic it's literally the cornerstone of all commerce and communications in the modern world". Or maybe you're not thinking that. But I'm not talking about the web as a whole, I'm talking about the open web. The come-do-cool-things-with-our-api web. The open standards web. The indie web.
Services like Linktree exist because Facebook, TikTok, et al decided that links are okay but only if it's to their stuff. You, the creator of the video/photo/whatever only get one link, better make it a good one. Even then, my wife sometimes sends me links of Facebook don't-call-it-tiktoks and unless I install the mobile app, those links just don't work.
The real web is built on links. Hyper ones, in fact. Links you can share on your website. Links you can send to your mates. Links to pages that can be indexed by search engines so you can find things again (in theory).
Look at this journey Chris went through to stumble upon the App Defaults project:[2]
I was adding a link to omg.lol, a blog and email hosting service that's cute AND easy AND (relatively) cheap, to my newsletter.
While browsing their help and info page, I saw that they offer a /now/ feature that lets you update the world on what you're working on, reading, watching, etc... now. Old school internet at it's best.
I clicked through to the omg.lol /now garden which has examples of how people are using /now to update the world.
I randomly picked Rebecca Owen's /now page.
Then I clicked back through to her omg.lol page to see how she was using it.
I saw she had a blog, so I checked that out.
The most recent post on Rebecca's blog was one called Default Apps 2023. That's clickbait-up-arrow.gif material for me.
She had included a link to an episode a podcast called Hemispheric Views, and this defaults page.
That is cool. That is how we should find interesting things. With links. The big social media sites have decided that actually no, we don't like links. Just sort of "find" things and if you don't find it well tough shit. Sharing interesting websites, blogs, and articles on your own site is the way to go. Make a blogroll. Make a podroll. Share links on your Mastodon account.
Check out About Feeds to see how RSS works and apps that work with it. I use NetNewsWire.
Blogs and RSS never died. Some of us just took a little break from it while we all shitposted on Twitter for likes, retweets, and validation. While we wrote long, unfindable threads instead of blog posts. I'm as guilty of this as anyone.
Get an RSS app or service and install an extension that auto detects RSS feeds. Keep an eye on it while you're browsing around and grab every feed you see. You can easily unsubscribe if it's not for you. Here's over 300 blogs to get you started.
Chris McLeod said this about blogging in his post, "Blogging is where it's at, again":
stumbling into such a trove of active blogs has enthused me about blogging as a medium again
He's right. Blogging is where it's at. Get a blog. Post some stuff.
If you have a website, don't forget to expose your RSS. Have a big prominent button. Make sure it's in your head for auto-detection. Maybe start an RSS club. Post some wonderful things, or sad things, or only-interesting-to-you things.[3]
/now page to your site. Check out a whole load of them here and on the now garden./uses page to list what apps and hardware and whatever else you use. uses.tech has nearly 800 examples.It's your website, you can add literally anything you want[4] and no one can stop you.
This is all well and good but if you don't already have a website it can be daunting to know where to go.
Reach out to me on Mastodon if you have questions and I'll do what I can to help get you started.
The real web, the small web, the indie web is amazing. Don't give Facebook and the rest of these clowns your content. Don't give them the time or your attention. Get a blog, a website, a Mastodon account, something you control, and share links to cool things you find. Make a list of your favourite blogs or websites or photos of cats. Write about a pizza you had that was delicious. Share a recipe. Go down a rabbit hole for hours on end adding weird stuff to your site. Just do it somewhere you control because the real web is fantastic.
New post: The Web is Fantastic https://rknight.me/blog/the-web-is-fantastic/
This is a post I've been trying to write for a while and it's a bit all over the place but if I don't post it now it will live in purgatory forever