Reply to Jorge Toledo about what IndieWeb is about

If it helps a bit, I’ve written a primer on IndieWeb basics which might be helpful.

Often I think it’s more illustrative to see what IndieWeb is by seeing what it can do. Greg and I are both publishing first on our own websites, and only then syndicating our replies to Twitter, where you’re seeing them. Then any responses to those posts are being fed back to our websites via the Webmention protocol with the help of Brid.gy in a process known as backfeed. The nice part is that he and I can have a website to website conversation (I’m on the WordPress CMS and he’s using WithKnown as his CMS of choice) without needing to use Facebook, Twitter, etc. as corporate intermediaries–typically unless we want to include others like you who aren’t using their own platforms yet.

To a great extent, we’re using simple web standards and open protocols so that our websites function like our own personal social media services without giving away all the control and the data to third parties. If you prefer, you can also think of IndieWeb as what the old blogosphere might have become if MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, et al. hadn’t happened.

As another example of what IndieWeb related technology is about: I haven’t quite finished all the moving pieces yet, but my personal website is also federated in the sense that you can follow me @chrisaldrich on Mastodon or other parts of the Fediverse. (Don’t judge the output too harshly just yet, I’m still working on it, but it’s at least a reasonable proof of concept that many are also doing now. I also don’t have direct replies via Mastodon working just yet either…)

Please do let us know if you have other questions. We’re happy to help.

---

Post your response to this using Twitter:

•  Reply  
•  Repost  
•  Like