5 ms·

There are just not enough ways to discover personal blogs. HN is a great source, but you'll notice over time there are always AskHN posts asking something like

There are just not enough ways to discover personal blogs. HN is a great source, but you'll notice over time there are always AskHN posts asking something like "What is a site like HN for..", and people trying to build HN clones. Reddit was good for a while for this, but hasn't been for a long time. I'm hoping people rediscover/reinvent slashdot.

simonw 11mo ago
If you blog I think it's really important to develop a habit of linking to other people's blogs. That's how blog discovery used to work back in the 200xs and it can still work effectively today.
- HeinzStuckeIt 11mo ago
  If you mean creating a blogroll to show other blogs you recommend, that is no longer so effective now that mobile phones are most of the world’s default interface to the internet. Themes for common blogging platforms like Wordpress generally hide the sidebar, blogrolls included, on mobile.
  - simonw 11mo ago
    No not a blog roll - more a link blog or a habit of linking back to pieces you found relevant or interesting.
    - cosmicgadget 11mo ago
      Agreed on this. Blogrolls are okay for people wandering the blogosphere but you only get so much from "check out this peer of mine". Topical links (here is another informative post about x) are much nicer for a reader who is already reading about x. And link blogs are great because they endorse specific content from someone.
- immibis 11mo ago
  Like this page: https://www.immibis.com/outlinks/ https://www.immibis.com/outlinks/ It's just a list of hyperlinks to other sites with brief descriptions. I think it's a good idea and everyone should create one on their small website.
- gibsonsmog 11mo ago
  Everyday we get a little closer to web rings and I'm here for it
  - tclancy 11mo ago
    Next someone invent RSS and feed readers and the circle of life can continue!
jasonjmcghee 11mo ago
There’s https://kagi.com/smallweb https://kagi.com/smallweb
- raincole 11mo ago
  The animated basketball makes me dislike this page instantly. Amazing how much attention a 30px height can rob from the main content.
- lofaszvanitt 11mo ago
  Noone uses Kagi.... compared to the big engines.
  - pajamasam 11mo ago
    You don’t have to use Kagi’s search engine in order to use Small Web.
AlexAplin 11mo ago
Cloudhiker is pretty healthy as a StumbleUpon revival. I've found lots of great personal blogs and sites across a lot of categories through it. https://cloudhiker.net/ https://cloudhiker.net/
cosmicgadget 11mo ago
Marginalia is great. Also take a look at https://outerweb.org/explore https://outerweb.org/explore
postalcoder 11mo ago
Try hcker.news' small web filter[0], which uses Kagi's small web list[1] to show a hacker news timeline that consists only of personal blogs. It works really well if you're looking for a cozier timeline. 0: https://hcker.news/?smallweb=true https://hcker.news/?smallweb=true 1: https://kagi.com/smallweb https://kagi.com/smallweb
- soiltype 11mo ago
  This is really cool, thanks!
  - postalcoder 11mo ago
    Glad you like it!
emschwartz 11mo ago
I built Scour to help me sift through noisy sources like HN Newest. For each article in my Scour feed, I can click the Show Feeds button to find what other sources that post shows up in. I’ve found that to be quite a nice way of discovering people’s blogs that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. You can also scour all 14,000+ sources for posts that match your interests. https://scour.ing https://scour.ing
BruceEel 11mo ago
While we are here, may I ask what are some blogs you guys read regularly? (Regularly as in: going back to read new articles as opposed to a one-off link shared on some other platform.)
lenkite 11mo ago
I really wish someone came up with an reddit alternative - perhaps stick to STEM + lifestyle topics only to keep things free of national/international politics - and thus free of interference/censorship.
nelsonfigueroa 11mo ago
Yeah there could be better ways but I've found a handful of sites that are useful like https://indieblog.page/ https://indieblog.page/. I actually wrote up a list of my favorite personal blog discoverability sites here: https://nelson.cloud/how-i-discover-new-blogs/ https://nelson.cloud/how-i-discover-new-blogs/
- raffael_de 11mo ago
  > A list of all sites indexed by Kagi Small Web is on GitHub: https://github.com/kagisearch/smallweb/blob/main/smallweb.txt https://github.com/kagisearch/smallweb/blob/main/smallweb.tx... As a Kagi customer I have to say that's a disappointingly short list and static approach :/
  - wiether 11mo ago
    A a Kagi customer I have to say that finding the Small Web list "disappointingly short" is kinda hilarious
    - raffael_de 11mo ago
      If you consider how huge the web is then 23887 websites is not covering a small but a tiny part. Also the approach of maintaining such a list manually seems fairly uninspired.
      - immibis 11mo ago
        If you just go by the number of websites, most websites are promotional slop though. The top 23887 websites that are actually good probably covers a large part of the subset of the internet that's actually good. Anyway, Kagi Small Web is not a list of websites but a list of RSS feeds.
yoz-y 11mo ago
I just follow people on Mastodon and read stuff they link.
- zingar 11mo ago
  What are your servers and or people to follow? My mastodon timeline is a wasteland
  - ghaff 11mo ago
    Bluesky isn't the Twitter of old but it's at least something. I gave Mastodon a spin for a while but it's pretty desolate in my experience.
  - yoz-y 11mo ago
    I’m on a small boutique instance. I guess the trick is to follow somebody who reposts stuff from people around.
fsflover 11mo ago
https://wiby.me https://wiby.me
marginalia_nu 11mo ago
My search engine has some not-very-obvious tools for exploring the link graph, that will occasionally turn up interesting things. Similarity navigation: https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net Backlinks: https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net?view=links https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net?view=li...
- ggirelli 11mo ago
  Out of curiosity, I see my website not being well indexed and I wondered whether it is because I include ``` User-agent: * Disallow: / ``` in my robots.txt. What should one add to allow Marginalia to crawl their website?
  - marginalia_nu 11mo ago
    This should work User-agent: search.marginalia.nu Allow: /
    - ggirelli 11mo ago
      Thank you! I just added it :)
eXpl0it3r 11mo ago
Someone has built a RSS feed aggregator specifically for personal websites: https://powrss.com/ https://powrss.com/

simonw 11mo ago

If you blog I think it's really important to develop a habit of linking to other people's blogs. That's how blog discovery used to work back in the 200xs and it can still work effectively today.

HeinzStuckeIt 11mo ago
If you mean creating a blogroll to show other blogs you recommend, that is no longer so effective now that mobile phones are most of the world’s default interface to the internet. Themes for common blogging platforms like Wordpress generally hide the sidebar, blogrolls included, on mobile.
- simonw 11mo ago
  No not a blog roll - more a link blog or a habit of linking back to pieces you found relevant or interesting.
  - cosmicgadget 11mo ago
    Agreed on this. Blogrolls are okay for people wandering the blogosphere but you only get so much from "check out this peer of mine". Topical links (here is another informative post about x) are much nicer for a reader who is already reading about x. And link blogs are great because they endorse specific content from someone.
immibis 11mo ago
Like this page: https://www.immibis.com/outlinks/ https://www.immibis.com/outlinks/ It's just a list of hyperlinks to other sites with brief descriptions. I think it's a good idea and everyone should create one on their small website.
gibsonsmog 11mo ago
Everyday we get a little closer to web rings and I'm here for it
- tclancy 11mo ago
  Next someone invent RSS and feed readers and the circle of life can continue!

jasonjmcghee 11mo ago

There’s https://kagi.com/smallweb https://kagi.com/smallweb

raincole 11mo ago
The animated basketball makes me dislike this page instantly. Amazing how much attention a 30px height can rob from the main content.
lofaszvanitt 11mo ago
Noone uses Kagi.... compared to the big engines.
- pajamasam 11mo ago
  You don’t have to use Kagi’s search engine in order to use Small Web.

AlexAplin 11mo ago

Cloudhiker is pretty healthy as a StumbleUpon revival. I've found lots of great personal blogs and sites across a lot of categories through it. https://cloudhiker.net/ https://cloudhiker.net/

cosmicgadget 11mo ago

Marginalia is great. Also take a look at https://outerweb.org/explore https://outerweb.org/explore

postalcoder 11mo ago

Try hcker.news' small web filter[0], which uses Kagi's small web list[1] to show a hacker news timeline that consists only of personal blogs. It works really well if you're looking for a cozier timeline. 0: https://hcker.news/?smallweb=true https://hcker.news/?smallweb=true 1: https://kagi.com/smallweb https://kagi.com/smallweb

soiltype 11mo ago
This is really cool, thanks!
- postalcoder 11mo ago
  Glad you like it!

emschwartz 11mo ago

I built Scour to help me sift through noisy sources like HN Newest. For each article in my Scour feed, I can click the Show Feeds button to find what other sources that post shows up in. I’ve found that to be quite a nice way of discovering people’s blogs that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. You can also scour all 14,000+ sources for posts that match your interests. https://scour.ing https://scour.ing

BruceEel 11mo ago

While we are here, may I ask what are some blogs you guys read regularly? (Regularly as in: going back to read new articles as opposed to a one-off link shared on some other platform.)

lenkite 11mo ago

I really wish someone came up with an reddit alternative - perhaps stick to STEM + lifestyle topics only to keep things free of national/international politics - and thus free of interference/censorship.

nelsonfigueroa 11mo ago

Yeah there could be better ways but I've found a handful of sites that are useful like https://indieblog.page/ https://indieblog.page/. I actually wrote up a list of my favorite personal blog discoverability sites here: https://nelson.cloud/how-i-discover-new-blogs/ https://nelson.cloud/how-i-discover-new-blogs/

raffael_de 11mo ago
> A list of all sites indexed by Kagi Small Web is on GitHub: https://github.com/kagisearch/smallweb/blob/main/smallweb.txt https://github.com/kagisearch/smallweb/blob/main/smallweb.tx... As a Kagi customer I have to say that's a disappointingly short list and static approach :/
- wiether 11mo ago
  A a Kagi customer I have to say that finding the Small Web list "disappointingly short" is kinda hilarious
  - raffael_de 11mo ago
    If you consider how huge the web is then 23887 websites is not covering a small but a tiny part. Also the approach of maintaining such a list manually seems fairly uninspired.
    - immibis 11mo ago
      If you just go by the number of websites, most websites are promotional slop though. The top 23887 websites that are actually good probably covers a large part of the subset of the internet that's actually good. Anyway, Kagi Small Web is not a list of websites but a list of RSS feeds.

yoz-y 11mo ago

I just follow people on Mastodon and read stuff they link.

zingar 11mo ago
What are your servers and or people to follow? My mastodon timeline is a wasteland
- ghaff 11mo ago
  Bluesky isn't the Twitter of old but it's at least something. I gave Mastodon a spin for a while but it's pretty desolate in my experience.
- yoz-y 11mo ago
  I’m on a small boutique instance. I guess the trick is to follow somebody who reposts stuff from people around.

fsflover 11mo ago

https://wiby.me https://wiby.me

marginalia_nu 11mo ago

My search engine has some not-very-obvious tools for exploring the link graph, that will occasionally turn up interesting things. Similarity navigation: https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net Backlinks: https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net?view=links https://marginalia-search.com/site/simonwillison.net?view=li...

ggirelli 11mo ago
Out of curiosity, I see my website not being well indexed and I wondered whether it is because I include ``` User-agent: * Disallow: / ``` in my robots.txt. What should one add to allow Marginalia to crawl their website?
- marginalia_nu 11mo ago
  This should work User-agent: search.marginalia.nu Allow: /
  - ggirelli 11mo ago
    Thank you! I just added it :)

eXpl0it3r 11mo ago

Someone has built a RSS feed aggregator specifically for personal websites: https://powrss.com/ https://powrss.com/