Rediscovering the Indie Web
Some starting points for rediscovering, personal blogs and sites, and escaping algorithmic social media
The web outside of social media is having a bit of a renaissance. As the major social media platforms continue to ensittify themselves further, reducing genuine human connections in favor of clicks and engagement metrics, people are looking for alternatives. What they are rediscovering is what has been called the “indie web”; individual user blogs and websites, crafted by humans, not necessarily designed for maximum engagement but instead written and published through passion and interest.
What is the indie web? ¶
The “indie web” is a collective term for the websites and blogs that exist outside of the big social media websites. Rather than being optimised for search engine ranking and user engagement, these are sites by individuals for publicising their own expressions, opinions and creativity. There are no standard formats and no common platforms, but they do tend to provide syndication through feeds and loose connection through open standards like webmentions and microformats.
Where do you find indie web content? ¶
The way the web is architected today makes it difficult to find this content. Search engines are continuing to move toward summarised content over direct links and AI services are likewise taking over the place of the search engines. So actually finding that cool author’s personal blog, then finding similar sites and authors is increasingly difficult.
Fortunately, there are some great sites out there that act as both a jumping point and directory into the indie web sphere. From the content published on these sites, its easier to find and discover other sites and begin your journey into the indie web. This post contains a list of a few of them in no particular order that you can peruse yourself. All of the sites publish their own feeds, meaning you can also subscribe to them in Foragd to keep up to date as they publish new content.
Feedle World ¶
Feedle is a search engine for blogs and feeds, so is a great place to find new blogs and sites to follow. They even have a cheeky feeling lucky random search, a tribute to the old function in the early days of Google Search.
Kagi Small Web ¶
Kagi is an alternative traditional web search engine and a big supported of independent websites and the indie web. They have a Kagi Small Web blog aggregator that is an excellent jumping point off to various people’s blogs and sites.
kottke.org ¶
kottke.org might just be one of the oldest blogs on the internet, having started in 1998. Jason Kottke, the author provides a curated selection of posts across a wide range of topics from art and science to tech and news on semi-regular basis. It’s a great site for random discovery and inspiration.
webcurios ¶
Across the pond, Matt has been publishing webcurios since 2010 a long-form part link aggregator, part opinion piece, part news update on various topics. There is some magical and wonderful links in each post, along with (and often lately) hard-hitting and though provoking long-reads on recent world events and topics. You’ll need a good drink and plenty of time to digest it in full. Published roughly weekly.
waxy.org ¶
Another site that has been around for like, the entire history of the web. Andy Baio publishes links to fun little browser games to interesting news and events from over the web.
Getting Started ¶
If you’ve never used a feed reader before, the easiest way to begin is to pick one site from the list above, subscribe to its feed in Foragd, and let it sit for a week. You’ll quickly find yourself following threads to new authors, niche topics, and corners of the web you didn’t know existed. That’s the indie web working exactly as it should; discovery driven by genuine human curiosity and not an algorithm. The web has always been bigger and stranger and more interesting than any platform’s timeline. You just need a map.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0.