Where did all the websites go? That's the question one Twitter user asked this thanksgiving, and the post went viral. I haven't stopped thinking about it. #SmallWeb#indieweb
I wrote about this question, some potential answers, and maybe one solution. Not the solution. But one of many.
Under-the-radar late night launch: RSS Parrot is live! It talks like Mastodon, but it doesn't walk like Mastodon. BUT! It will relay any RSS feed straight into your timeline.
Turn Mastodon into your very own feed reader. Follow anything that has an RSS feed and get a toot about new posts.
How? Mention @birb with the address you want to follow.
@kellogh I just rediscovered RSS & apart from feeds which are by design or for me read-only, I'm finding it invaluable to (a) keep track of my must-read people (& click through if I wish to read or join a Fediverse conversation), (b) to index my own posts on Mastodon so that I can relocate them without endless scrolling! (My instance does not yet have search options - & the RSS reader is fast.) @twilliability #RSS#Elasticsearch#OpenWeb
"Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
"free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
Emphasize "networked communities"
Support concentric federations of instances and communities
Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
Build a sustainable ecosystem
Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
Hello helpful friends of the Fediverse! I am considering a major rearchitecture of my site, https://shellsharks.com (and adjacent properties) and wanted to get some advice/tips from the wider #indieweb, #blogging, #openweb, #webdev, #webdevelopment communities out here. (Sorry for the long read!)
Currently, my site is hosted on Github Pages which uses #jekyll for static site generation. I've been using this for nearly 5 years and for the most part have no complaints. The service has decent uptime, is pretty customizable (custom CSS, JS, etc...) and after all this time I am pretty comfortable using it. Some things I am interested in though in terms of re-architecting...
Fediverse / ActivityPub compatibility - #wordpress has gone live with their AP plugin and sites like micro.blog (I think) have some direct AP functionality. I'm interested in exploring this but it's not necessarily a must-have. More on Fediverse point of presence later...
IndieWeb functionality - I've baked in as much IndieWeb stuff as I can reasonably do with Jekyll hosted on Git Pages but would be interested in WebMention and other more advanced capabilities if offered by another platform / static-site generator.
I've toyed with the idea of self-hosting the blog (on AWS or something), while still using an SSG of some kind. There could be some benefits with adding more dynamic content or having more autonomy over my site but not sure if it'd be worth additional costs or headache trying to manage.
Writing (or generally producing "content") has always been something I do out of pure enjoyment but I've considered trying to monetize in some way. What are some platform considerations if I wanted to monetize say, a podcast, newsletter, video courses, premium articles, etc...
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Other adjacent properties I'm looking to "re-design"...
My #podcast is currently hosted on #Podbean, which I have liked so far but I'd like to further embrace the Fediverse so have considered moving to #Castopod. Any advice on hosted vs. self-hosted? Are there other non-Castopod fediverse options?
As of right now, my presence in the Fediverse is mostly on infosec.exchange where I post stuff from my site. I've considered hosting my own instance of Mastodon (or something similar) to be my main account or even just as an official "shellsharks the site" account. I've seen accounts of people going down this path and ultimately bailing due to costs, time overhead, etc...
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If there are noticeable benefits to making any significant changes I'd be willing to take that on as a project for 2024. Otherwise, I might just stick with what I have and focus on writing/research =). Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to read / respond!
I've really fallen for the quaint, "small towns” of the #openweb. I don't want to speak for everyone, but for me, it comprises the best parts of the internet.
This past year, I found myself reacquainting with the decidedly unincorporated areas of the internet. These spaces have a particular charm that I cannot easily explain. I can only describe it as the feeling you get when you discover a cool little town square on a weekend getaway.
Yes, this is a terrible move in so many ways. Especially #PixelFed of all platforms. All users of #Threads are #Instagram users. All of 100 million or so of them. And instead of showing them that there is another way, PixelFed is shutting the door on their face!
I have yet to see a worse way to promote the #Fediverse and the #OpenWeb.
I just can't understand this decision.
When a random instance is preemptively blocking Threads, they're only hurting themselves, but a flagship instance?
They think they're "fighting" Meta, but all they're doing is hurting their users and hurting Threads users, who are our friends and families, the people we want to bring over to the Fediverse.
Just when I was starting to love PixelFed and wanted to start promoting it more, I'm seriously reconsidering now, and will probably leave the thing altogether. What's the point of even changing instance when the flagship and the developers are acting against the Fediverse.
I've listend to 3 of the 4 available episodes of Dot Social podcast.
Very interesting podcast if your interested in the history and possible future of the Fediverse.
"Learn about the Internet’s next wave on the open social web and what it will unlock for how we connect, communicate, and innovate online. Hosted by Flipboard CEO Mike McCue."
Should be available in all the places that podcasts are available.
The Medium is The Message is part one of a series (probably). In it, I argue that #Threads is not the assumed victory for the #fediverse it appears to be.
Longterm interpolation with Threads sends the wrong signal— not that Meta and Mastodon use #ActivityPub, a protocol the average user doesn’t understand, but that both share the same beliefs for the #openweb. #PostsFromJason#FediSeriesFJ
I'll tell you all, a whole LOT of people on the #Fediverse (especially those on bigger instances) that I have respect for are showing their true colors over these last couple of days and it's really a shame.
It's like they don't even acknowledge Meta/FB's history of doing business plus deep down, they give you know what about the #openweb these days.
It's been seven years since I joined @glitchdotcom and used it to write tutorials and host some of my projects! 🎉
I've been a huge fan of the work their team has done over the years and I've spoken about my own work on their blog in 2017, and again earlier this year:
As little as a dollar a month could go a long way towards giving that poor, starving fox a loving home, stable diet, shelter from the elements, and a shot at a happy life. Open your hearts, open your wallets and show your generous colours.
"They’ve already laid claim to our collective land, labor and attention. With AI, they want to own our thoughts and the last shred of agency that comes with them. If we fail to defend our personal sovereignty at this juncture, a dark age of the corporate singularity awaits us."
"To land a real blow, look for where the machines are at their most materialized. Take aim at their massive bodies of data and strike there with conviction."
The W3C, founded in 1994 by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, has quit X and declared the fediverse to be their primary social media channel. Follow them at: @w3c
@fluepke#W3C has pretty much become a rubberstamp for the #Google-led cartel that is the #WHATWG. An organization that doesn't give smaller browsers like #PaleMoon, #LadyBird, and #Lynx a voice in the writing of specs for web standards like #HTML5 and #CSS3 does not deserve support, and should not be seen as an ally of the #openweb.
@f09fa681 Issue #552 of whatwg/html pretty much explains for itself what it means for contributions which don't get "enough implementer interest" in the #WHATWG despite having a significant #webdev grassroots support.
This obsession in making sure at least two "implementers" have the feature baked into their codebases is frankly bull and is one of the factors of why we have such a #Google-biased #web. Theoretically it's there so that every feature would be certain that there are players backing and seeing that feature being useful and good for the #openweb, but in reality it has become Google's veto in most cases, with the popular being one of the victims here. It has been a standard for quite some years, yet Chrome's developers seem to have an extreme case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome and decided not to implement it for whatever reason. Maybe they really don't have an interest in it and are therefore in "patches welcome" mode like a corporation would do in #opensource. Or maybe, they saw it as a threat to their Google #WebComponents because it pretty much satisfies most of the usecases their toy project #ShadowDOM is designed to solve, and web developers don't want to deal with such a complex feature just to limit the scope of their #CSS. Whatever the reason is, this should not kill a feature that has been long-awaited by many web developers to be supported in their #browsers and is backed by a well-maintained and developed #browser (which is #PaleMoon in this case).
Allowing comments in GitHub issues is ultimately useless if the final decisions are made by a closed cabal of big "implementers" who as history has shown has been pretty much Google's lapdogs most of the time.
#OpenWeb#Competition#Antitrust: "The elimination of competition – and the ensuing capture of regulation – removed the discipline imposed by the fear of customers defecting as the product degraded. The harder it is for users to leave a service, the easier it is for the factions within a company to best their rivals in the debate over whether they should be allowed to make the service worse.
That’s what changed. That’s what’s different. Tech didn’t get worse because techies got worse. Tech got worse because the condition of the external world made it easier for the worst techies to win arguments.
A new, good internet is possible and worth fighting for. After all, the internet is a powerful and crucial force in our lives, a single conduit for free speech, a free press, free association; and access to education, family, civics, politics, health, employment, romance, and more.
The enshittified giants of the internet may be beyond redemption. Perhaps they have become so corrupted, piled up so much sin and callous disregard for human thriving, that all that is left is to burn them to the ground."
Apple loses on Appeal, CMA can restart investigation into browsers - Open Web Advocacy (open-web-advocacy.org)