Sounds kinda weird, doesn’t it? Personal website. But why is that? The state of the web today is totally backwards, that’s why. We should all have our little cozy homes on the web under our control that all of our content and effort radiate from. Instead, the web is dominated by intrusive silos – mostly run by advertising companies (and now erratic billionaires) – into which we pour our personal information to be locked away, analyzed, manipulated or sold off for shady purposes. Ugh…it didn’t used to be this way. [I’ve been on the web since 1995 – get off my lawn!!]
In 2018 I discovered the IndieWeb movement, a group of people passionate about improving their own websites and sharing with a community of like-minded people. Once I started reading through their Why IndieWeb? article all I could think was, “Yes! This is EVERYTHING I’ve been feeling about the web lately.” Check out their site for more info. In a nutshell:
- Your content is yours
When you post something on the web, it should belong to you, not a corporation. - You are in control
You should be able to post anything you want, in any format you want, with no one monitoring you. Links on your own site are permanent and will always be there for you. - You are better connected
Your articles and status messages can go to all services, not just one, allowing you to engage with everyone. (I haven’t gotten this site working like that quite yet…)
I’m old enough to have gone through losing my data on random websites and services dying out several times over (cough) so I’m jaded about keeping my info on anyone else’s server that I don’t own and control.
About this site
This site is completely designed just for me and keeping up with my interests but you are welcome to have a look around!
It’s also an ongoing experiment with IndieWeb principles and tools, and practical experiments into making it work for me. An online home base, the place I turn to post things and know they’ll always be here as long as I want them to be. I want to add features as I get time and seed it with content both forward and backward.