IndieWeb

Recently I discovered this whole IndieWeb thing and it has been really inspiring. Since I’ve had this domain sitting around for years, this seemed like a great way to put it to use.

So what is the IndieWeb?

The IndieWeb is a people-focused alternative to the “corporate web”.

It is a community of independent and personal websites connected by open standards and based on the principles of: owning your domain and using it as your primary online identity, publishing on your own site first (optionally elsewhere), and owning your content.

It turns out this movement has been around since 2010. I can’t say that I’ve heard a single mention of it over the last 13 years. Recently through, there has been a resurgence due to all the changes happening across various social platforms.

It is difficult to remember a time before social media and content platforms. We’ve all become members of these online communities, sharing our lives and our thoughts with the wider world. No small amount of effort goes into building these friendships, cataloging our lives and sharing our content.

At the end of the day, these online communities are owned by businesses. That means that they can be bought and sold, their terms of service can change and eventually they can be shuttered completely. This can leave those communities splintered and broken and force its members to pick up the pieces and rebuild elsewhere.

That, I think, is the hope and the promise of the IndieWeb. If you build your online identity and your communities around content you own, you can become more resilient to the online sea change. Businesses and their platforms can come and go, you will remain.

This doesn’t mean that you need to avoid the social media sites, quite the opposite. If you share your content primarily through your own site first, you can share links back to your content on those other platforms. This is known as POSSE or Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. Friends can interact with your content however they like and if their platform changes, they know where to find you afterward.

I’ve seen a lot of people, online content creators especially, struggle with everything that has been happening with these online communities. For some of these people, their entire livelihood depends on these platforms. The IndieWeb gives me some hope that, moving forward, we can build more resilient communities that will stand the test of time.

So, here it is, my humble little online identity. Thanks for dropping by.