For the longest time, I planned to start my own space on the web. (Maybe I should say restart, if you consider my GeoCities website with lots of tasteful gifs, circa 2001).
I wanted a place where I could share stuff I found interesting and discuss that stuff with people who not necessarily lived across the street from me. But among the countless reasons I found towards definitely not starting out (if you discount basic laziness) was this sense of shouting in a giant void. For whom am I writing, if nobody knows I’m here?
How about “mainstream” social media? I get it, but I wanted “my” own space, where I own my content and be responsible for where it gets published (it should be on my domain). And I have to own my social graph and keep it with me if I want to move things around. Plus I just don’t like what those guys are up to.
I can definitely understand the folks who say that technologies like ActivityPub make the web feel like it was supposed to, like if centralized social networks had not taken over (and we collectively let them…) To me, the web hasn’t felt this ”fun” in a long while, since I discovered the Fediverse and communities like IndieWeb. Finally, I can write on my own website, be part of a network and bring my connections and conversations around if and when I decide to relocate.
For the time being, I’m going to host this site on Micro.blog. I originally planned to start from scratch, but hey, I know myself. I would have spent countless hours refining CSS classes and adding feature after feature, without putting down a single word. That finely-tuned 11ty static website I concocted over 18 months ago and currently resting in some folder on my Mac can vouch for me.
Moreover, I love what @manton and his team have built and I share their vision. (I particularly enjoyed reading Manton’s ebook, go read it if you haven’t). So the plan now is to jumpstart a habit of writing in a somewhat regular fashion, then, eventually, figure out the tech side of things and tinker with it.
Ok, onwards.