IndieWeb Goals 2019

If you haven't heard of the IndieWeb, it is the idea that people should be in control of and own the content they create.

Magazine rack; one of the magazines is titled 'Indie'

The description from IndieWeb.org has these three ideals:

  • Your content is yours
  • You are better connected
  • You are in control

Since I found the IndieWeb a couple years ago I have been excited to participate. Of course, maybe not excited enough to actually blog on a regular basis or build tools to improve the experience.

That changes this year.

Goal One - Interact with other IndieWeb sites

There are a couple ways to interact with other websites: posting on your own site and informing the site you are interacting with.

For both, lets use this example:

  • You read a blog post on someone's website
  • You want to let people know that you liked the post

This is where Webmentions come into play. Webmentions allow you to send notifications to other sites to let them know you are interacting in some way. Webmentions also allow you to receive these same interactions from other websites. Interactions could be likes, shares, replies, or bookmarks. A cool example of this can be found on Max Böck's site.

Goal Two - Post more here, syndicate content

Posting on my site is kind of a pain at the moment:

  • I only have long form blog posts set up
  • Every post requires me to commit to a git repository
  • Every post has a manual gate before production

sigh

This will be tough but I need to revisit the process I follow for posting content. I also want to support some sweet post types. Once these two, very large, steps are completed then I will find it much easier to post on my own site.

Syndication would be the next step. I am less worried about this because I already post very little on other platforms but I know friends and family would like to hear a bit more from me.

Goal Three - I am a person

While exploring the IndieWeb web ring and IndieWeb.xyz I found that I would spend lots of time learning about the authors. It seemed important to understanding their posts, notes, and photos. It is time to write a bit about myself. It isn't something I actively hide but I do limit my sharing on purpose.

With the launch of this post, I will be launching my /about and /now pages. Goal Three complete. 🎉

Get involved

Want to get off Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Want to own your own site? You don't have to be dumb like me and write all your own artisanal software.

Here are some cool projects to help you build your own content house.