This week Mark Zuckerberg met at Mar-a-Lago with a convicted criminal who is out on bail. I stopped posting to Instagram in 2017, but I keep giving Meta second chances. No more. It’s time to burn this shit to the ground and move forward with the open web. Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
IndieWeb Secret Santa?
I want to add an important feature to podcasting that can only work with RSS, it can’t work with Spotify, Google, Audible etc. The idea is subscribing to subscription lists, which the influencers are likely to really love because they can create networks of podcasts. And when they want to edit the list, if this is done right, the users will automatically be updated. The RSS-based podcast industry just hasn’t been moving and if we don’t add features, improve the tech with new features for creators and users, then we deserve what we get. More on the technology to come in subsequent blog posts. But this is the core idea, just to get started.
Wow, Wicked. They actually pulled it off. So good. 🧹
ran the Spartan Turkey Trot #5k #race in 44:34 @SpartanTurkey5k!2min/mi+ faster average pace than 2023’s #turkeyTrot walk / slow jog of 47:37 on a shortened course (2.86mi).Arrived early for a warm-up and it was the coldest it’s been in years (30-something F). Alternated run/...
Have been doing a lot of different things lately. 3D printing, organizational stuff, and an unexpected side trip to Ireland for work with an interesting new project to work on there. Makes me fear I’m neglecting my website. So many things I want to do here and with the code that powers it.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate the holiday. What am I thankful for? Peloton for one. And living in the most beautiful part of the United States, except for all the other most beautiful parts. I know we're going to find our way out of this mess. My hope is we all sta...
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Thanksgiving is about belonging
I think Thanksgiving is mostly about belonging.
I was raised in a culture other than that of either of my parents or my nationality: what they call a Third Culture Kid. With that sort of profile, belonging is hard to come by. As a child, I sounded British but wasn’t; I didn...
You can use Web Components without the shadow DOM
chromamine.com/2024/10/you-can-use-web-components-without-the-shadow-dom/
So what are the advantages of the Custom Elements API if you’re not going to use the Shadow DOM alongside it?
- Obvious Markup
- Instantiation is More Consistent
- They’re Progressive Enhancement Friendly
We have a fairly large set of Micro.blog changes ready to go live. I want to deploy them now but the wiser me knows middle of Thanksgiving is a bad idea. Perhaps tonight, or I’ll push it until the morning. 🦃
The Kennedy v Nixon template
Analogously, Trump is Kennedy and Biden/Harris is Nixon.
And the social web is 2024, what TV was in 1960.
Trump has mastered the new medium. To a large extent, he created the new medium, and the resulting network formed around him.
So when Carville says he wants to figure o...
Going Offline is online …for free
I wrote a book about service workers. It’s called Going Offline. It was first published by A Book Apart in 2018. Now it’s available to read for free online.
If you want you can read the book as a PDF, an ePub, or .mobi, but I recommend reading it in your browser.
Needless ...
For Love of God, Make Your Own Website - Aftermath
Unfortunately, this is what all of the internet is right now: social media, owned by large corporations that make changes to them to limit or suppress your speech, in order to make themselves more attractive to advertisers or just pursue their owners’ ends. Even the best Twitter alternatives, like Bluesky, aren’t immune to any of this—the more you centralize onto one single website, the more power that website has over you and what you post there. More than just moving to another website, we need more websites.
Every generation or two you hear about a few tech wiener boys who think after getting founders stock at a Silicon Valley company and getting his picture in Business Week or TechCrunch that he should run Africa or make up some country and for a minute tries doing it and no one pays much attention and a generation or two later it happens again, and the conclusion is that being a tech wiener boy doesn’t really prepare you to do anything but make a bunch of money once, be bored, and really nothing else. First time I witnessed this phenomenon was with a few product marketing wünderbrats at Apple in the early 80s, smart people (not kidding) but not nearly as smart as they thought they were. A big part was the serendipity of being in a Hobee’s or Buck's when Steve Jobs or a Kleiner partner was having breakfast after a big IPO.
There will not be a Black Friday sale for Micro.blog. No better time than right now to sign up and subscribe.
New episode of Core Int just in time to queue up for your Thanksgiving travel. We talk about my short vacation last week, working while away, dealing with bugs, Bluesky growth, and the state of the social web.
I may seem easygoing and agreeable on the surface, don’t mind a little friendly competition, but deep down… I do not like to lose.
Wednesday session
Wednesday session
What the heck, Austin? In the last few weeks we’ve now made two full-priced offers on houses and not gotten either one. Sigh. 🏡
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
For Love of God, Make Your Own Website
[Gita Jackson at Aftermath]
I love a good treatise in favor of the indie web:
"Unfortunately, this is what all of the internet is right now: social media, owned by large corporations that make changes to them to limit or suppress your speech, in order to mak...