Benjamin Drivdal

Tag: indieweb

  • Joining the IndieWeb

    Some history

    I have long been following the IndieWeb movement as well as the works around ActivityPub and the Fediverse. Especially write-ups, podcasts and interviews by or with the brilliant Christine Lemmer-Webber (personal site: https://dustycloud.org/), one of the members of the Social Web Working Group and co-author of the ActityPub protocol.

    Given the number of podcasts and articles I have worked through in the last few years it was probably about time that I actually made an effort to do something with it, right? Well, since we are still in the retrospective part of this post, let’s recap some of the sources that influenced me up until this day. The list is just from the top of my head, so it is incomplete and not at all chronological.

    • The Switching.Software website. I stumbled upon this site when searching for alternatives in frustration over the lock-in in software and the surveillance in social media. This site redirected me to Framasoft and Disroot, which in turn set me on track to discover the ongoing work on ActivityPub. This site also made me aware of other distributed social networks like Friendica and GNU social. I tested Friendica before they supported ActivityPub as it looked similar to Facebook at the time, but never sticked with it.
    • The Libre Lounge Podcast that expanded upon free software, the fediverse and ActivityPub through many episodes. I found this podcast when searching for podcasts and interviews with the authors of ActivityPub. The episodes explaining how ActivityPub works was especially enlightening, but I kept on listening for all the other episodes regarding building distributed communities, hacker culture, free software, using Emacs, and the establishment of Spritely.
    • The Foss & Crafts Podcast that continued where Libre Lounge ended, but included Christine’s partner in discussion crafting more generally. I think this podcast made an interesting bridge between the low-level technicalities of code and protocols, and other types of creative outbursts like textile and knitting. And it was fun to listen 🙂
    • I stumbled upon the abbreviation POSSE in some way which led me to the wiki page on indieweb.org, which made me discover the IndieWeb movement for the first time, and the concept clicked immediately. POSSE means Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.

    Actually joining the IndieWeb

    Initial reference: https://indiewebify.me/

    Level 1: Become a citizen of the IndieWeb

    • Get a domain (check)
    • Get Web Sign In (check) – I just followed the guide, set up IndieAuth and logged into indieweb.org using my own domain! It was simpler than I thought 😀

    Level 2 and beyond: to do in a later post

  • Why write?

    I’m usually very private online these days. After working with digital marketing and web analytics for a while, and around the time of Snowden, I started to worry about the use and misuse of my digital footprints. After reading Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier I took the leap and went about to deactivate my presence on the social platforms and trying to clean up my online clutter. GDPR was very helpful in this regard, as I had hundreds of emails from different online spaces that requested my consent to keep data about me.

    Well.. then what? I successfully disconnected from everything that attracted me to the web in the first place, as well as the creepy attention economy, data mining social platforms and the rest.

    Ever since 5th grade I had some form of place on the web where I wrote or shared photos. From classic free-hosting-using-FTP-to-upload-static-html-files, to custom pages on My Space and WordPress. Online forums, communities and personal spaces. These were things I actually liked. Then I stumbled upon indieweb.org and was gradually drawn back to the online world.

    Things take time though, I first learned about IndieWeb several years a go, but the family phase of life is really hectic. But here goes, I just need to do something. Now.

    So welcome to my little corner of the web. It is mostly meant to be my personal digital garden, so do not expect regular updates or anything special. Just my own notes on what I am up to.