8 ms·

IndieWeb

113 points by pandatigox 11y ago

aklemm 11y ago
Looking forward to implementing these on my personal domain. The dream is alive! These are great steps in the right direction, but the major draw that will take IndieWeb concepts mainstream still seems elusive.
ugexe 11y ago
"We should all own the content we're creating, rather than just posting to third-party content silos." Isn't this just centralizing and stream-lining the same process they claim you should be avoiding?
- kyle_wm 11y ago
  What makes you say that? It's about posting your own content on your own domain, very much not about centralizing nor streamlining.
  - tombrossman 11y ago
    It is definitely about centralizing, on your own domain. Nothing wrong with that but the distinction is to have total control and not rely on a third-party silo. This takes some extra effort but is totally worth it.
    - joshbuddy 11y ago
      I think that value proposition is very different for different people. For technical people, maybe it's a good idea. For non-technical people, I fear the indie web is very much out of reach.
- groks 11y ago
  1 billion people posting to Facebook is centralised. 1 billion people posting to 1 billion dot-whatever's is decentralised. From one perspective, moving your Instagram, Twitter and Facebook posts under your own domain is a kind of centralisation, but it's the least interesting perspective, because so what? The other perspective is that Facebook's (etc.) centralised service determines what you can do, what you see, who can see what you do, and ultimately because we're all products of our environment, defines you. And isn't that kind of sad?
- adrusi 11y ago
  To clarify, I think what you mean is services being centralized around the user, as opposed to what other commentors seem to be interpreting which is users centralized around services (the current state of the web).
mawburn 11y ago
>What is the IndieWeb? >We should all own the content we're creating, rather than just posting to third-party content silos. Publish on your own domain, and syndicate out to silos. This is the basis of the "Indie Web" movement. ~IndieWebCamp So... what is "the IndieWeb"? This didn't answer the question.
- Tomte 11y ago
  http://markmhendrickson.com/post/16 http://markmhendrickson.com/post/16 is a much better explanation what the IndieWeb is about.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    This webpage that doesn't load any text with NoScript. This makes me sad.
    - trymas 11y ago
      I guess that's what indieweb is all about. /s
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  Right. They answered a "what?" with a "why". :\
- benwerd 11y ago
  The indieweb is a social web where everyone runs their own profile, on their own (sub)domain, potentially on their own servers - while being able to talk to their friends as easily as they could on Facebook or Twitter. All based on open technologies, rough consensus, user-centered design and running code, rather than endless mailing lists and technical debate.
  - pXMzR2A 11y ago
    That sounds like (GNU Social) + (Diaspora) - (Distributed Content) Sounds great until your (sub)domain(s) gets censored or targeted.
mrspeaker 11y ago
Arrgh! I'm very intrigued, but have read that page 3 times and have no idea what it's about - is it just "add microformats to your website and presto: the internet was the indieweb all along!" or am I missing something?!
- pmlnr 11y ago
  It's a little deeper than that. For short the end goal would be for everyone to have their own domain - a website - and that domain should be the centrum & origin of their activity on the intenet. This means that the website would be the tool to send and receive interactions; it would be the storage for all one's content. This is to avoid those situations when content is removed, censored, etc. on a silo/social network; to have control over your own data and to have a mesh-network-like layout of individual sites that are more not single point of failures in opposition of gigantic monoculture that currently rule the internet. The reference for the 'like it was all along' is a reminder that a very long time ago the internet was a network of individual websites and you were not bound to use centralized services from corporations.
  - BillinghamJ 11y ago
    How does this differ from how Diaspora works?
    - pmlnr 11y ago
      diaspora is an open source social network. It's not a site for an individual, unlike, for example, http://withknown.com/ http://withknown.com/, WordPress, and the rest. My personal opinion behind the indieweb is here, in case it makes more sense like this: https://petermolnar.eu/journal/indieweb-decentralize-web-centralizing-ourselves/ https://petermolnar.eu/journal/indieweb-decentralize-web-cen...
    - benwerd 11y ago
      Diaspora is one product, whereas the indie web is a set of really lightweight technologies that allow you to join in from virtually any website. It's not dependent on any one vendor or project. I think the coolest bit is that each of the pieces is so simple that a coder can get up and running from scratch in an afternoon. That's very different to a lot of the federated social web technologies to date.
meira 11y ago
The main point about IndieWeb is to create authorship over published content. Silos (other social networks and startups) are only tools to syndicate it. IndieWebCamp is a bunch of people developing tools to support this endeavour. There is an IRC channel in freenode: #IndieWebCamp & #IndieChat
lowglow 11y ago
Here is something that helps explain the who, what, why a bit more. https://indiewebcamp.com/ https://indiewebcamp.com/
Xeoncross 11y ago
Seems like blog + XFN + pingbacks with a new name..? I would love it if everyone could have their own domain name + server - but this isn't practical at this point in time. Why not work on making running a server + website easier? - https://github.com/Xeoncross/lowendscript https://github.com/Xeoncross/lowendscript - https://gist.github.com/Xeoncross/3b8ed1d094707bc0dff8 https://gist.github.com/Xeoncross/3b8ed1d094707bc0dff8 - https://github.com/Xeoncross/simpleserversetup https://github.com/Xeoncross/simpleserversetup
- pmlnr 11y ago
  It's not a new name; it's more like 2.0 for blog + XFN + pingbacks, reducing the design flows in the earlier implementations.
- pmlnr 11y ago
  by the way, the author of pingback is doing webmentions intead already ;) http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2014/11/29/enabling-webmentions/ http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2014/11/29/enabling-webmention...
- groks 11y ago
  > I would love it if everyone could have their own domain name + server - but this isn't practical at this point in time. You don't need to run your own server. Point the domain name you own at Squarespace (or Wordpress.org, or hosted Wordpress, or any service you like...) for a low-tech, free or low-cost website where you decide what happens. Move when you change your mind.
- BorisMelnik 11y ago
  interesting questions, was thinking the same. although hosting is getting ridiculously cheap, you can have a great WordPress box setup on digital ocean for a few dollars per month. Small investment if you are committed to the industry. For the average non-internet joe maybe not, but if you are in the web dev/ design / SEO / marketing niche I'd say it is a must have to have your own hosting.
- benwerd 11y ago
  People are also working on that. The full stack needs an upgrade, and it's nice to see that happening across the board. It's more than blog + XFN + pingbacks. The combination of technologies really does allow for decentralized social activities (not just replies), potentially in real-time. If you don't want to mess with a server, we started an indieweb platform at https://withknown.com https://withknown.com. You can always take all your data and move to your own server later on.
z3t4 11y ago
I think more people should be self-hosting. You are probably already paying for a 24/7 Internet access. And your router is probably more then capable of hosting a web server.
- shortstuffsushi 11y ago
  Many ISPs (at least in the US, or Wisconsin) don't allow you to do this, and block incoming HTTP/HTTPS traffic.
  - relaxitup 11y ago
    I imagine there is some Cloudflare magic that could take care of this problem (whilst your home webserver running on an alternate port) ?
    - shortstuffsushi 11y ago
      Yes, using alternative ports does sometimes work. In the past, I had used NoIP or whatever the name was at that point to route incoming from 80 to a non-standard port. CloudFlare could probably do the same, but then have you defeated the goal of self hosting, since you have a provider in front of your site?
  - mikro2nd 11y ago
    Your own server (RasPi?) + pagekite.net will solve this.
ChrisArchitect 11y ago
I get this, it just seems like a battle sometimes. If you're just looking for somewhere to post some content/share an article/thought..... Also, and this is particularly relevant here on HN - what if you want to post some content that might be of interest on HN but you don't want to overload your personal site with traffic? Let one of the so called 'content silos' worry about the uptime. Also, why not just come out and say who this is about - the facebooks/mediums/tumblrs etc
- benwerd 11y ago
  If you're just looking for somewhere to post some content, we run an indieweb-compatible service: https://withknown.com https://withknown.com ;) It's about not having control over your representation online. For me, it's also about freedom of identity, and freedom to dictate your own content standards.
humanrebar 11y ago
I like the idea of the IndieWeb, but I'm also a big believer in discretion-oriented sharing. People don't just walk out on the street and start yelling facts and opinions at each other. They target their message for the audience. And if the audience is everyone, then the message tends to suffer. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't really see myself participating much until I can control who sees what information. I'd like sharing photos of my family with family and friends. I don't care to post them publicly. I like discussing politics... with people who can handle a political discussion without hurt feelings or pointless bickering. The IndieWeb makes a lot of sense for public conversation, though. If I were into blogging, writing, or otherwise producing content as a job or serious hobby, I'd be all over it.
- benwerd 11y ago
  We're working on that. :)
pc2g4d 11y ago
This seems like a great platform for spam, so if it's to succeed long-term there will need to be good antispam tools. Seems like a cool development, though, and I hope it works out.
- benwerd 11y ago
  There are some pretty good proposals about spam. So far it hasn't been a problem, but it's good to have tools in place.
chrisatthestudy 11y ago
Am I completely misunderstanding what this is supposed to be, or am I really so old that I remember what everyone else has forgotten? What you're calling the 'IndieWeb', where everyone has their own website and domain, and hosts their own content on it, we had a name for that. We called it the World Wide Web.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  Yeah, it's an attempt to revive the federated model of the WWW.
- benwerd 11y ago
  That is exactly the point.
ac360 11y ago
I love the IndieWeb movement. I don’t know if you guys have meet-ups, but if you’re in SF, I’d love to meet you. I’m one of the founders of Servant – https://www.servant.co https://www.servant.co – It’s a personal database which you can give apps permission to read and write to. The goal is to allow people to bring their own database to the apps they use and disconnect it whenever they’re done with an app. We’re in the centralization camp, but we share many goal/themes with the IndieWeb movement. - Austen austen [at] servant.co
- willnorris 11y ago
  There are the actual Indie Web Camps that occur several times throughout the year. And each month there is the Homebrew Website Club Meetup (http://indiewebcamp.com/next-hwc http://indiewebcamp.com/next-hwc, named after the Homebrew Computer Club).
fredfoobar42 11y ago
Do I need to have this WebReply crap? I have my own domain, and I don't have comments, because I want to own every pixel of the thing.

113 points by pandatigox 11y ago

Looking forward to implementing these on my personal domain. The dream is alive! These are great steps in the right direction, but the major draw that will take IndieWeb concepts mainstream still seems elusive.

ugexe 11y ago

"We should all own the content we're creating, rather than just posting to third-party content silos." Isn't this just centralizing and stream-lining the same process they claim you should be avoiding?

kyle_wm 11y ago
What makes you say that? It's about posting your own content on your own domain, very much not about centralizing nor streamlining.
- tombrossman 11y ago
  It is definitely about centralizing, on your own domain. Nothing wrong with that but the distinction is to have total control and not rely on a third-party silo. This takes some extra effort but is totally worth it.
  - joshbuddy 11y ago
    I think that value proposition is very different for different people. For technical people, maybe it's a good idea. For non-technical people, I fear the indie web is very much out of reach.
groks 11y ago
1 billion people posting to Facebook is centralised. 1 billion people posting to 1 billion dot-whatever's is decentralised. From one perspective, moving your Instagram, Twitter and Facebook posts under your own domain is a kind of centralisation, but it's the least interesting perspective, because so what? The other perspective is that Facebook's (etc.) centralised service determines what you can do, what you see, who can see what you do, and ultimately because we're all products of our environment, defines you. And isn't that kind of sad?
adrusi 11y ago
To clarify, I think what you mean is services being centralized around the user, as opposed to what other commentors seem to be interpreting which is users centralized around services (the current state of the web).

mawburn 11y ago

>What is the IndieWeb? >We should all own the content we're creating, rather than just posting to third-party content silos. Publish on your own domain, and syndicate out to silos. This is the basis of the "Indie Web" movement. ~IndieWebCamp So... what is "the IndieWeb"? This didn't answer the question.

Tomte 11y ago
http://markmhendrickson.com/post/16 http://markmhendrickson.com/post/16 is a much better explanation what the IndieWeb is about.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  This webpage that doesn't load any text with NoScript. This makes me sad.
  - trymas 11y ago
    I guess that's what indieweb is all about. /s
sarciszewski 11y ago
Right. They answered a "what?" with a "why". :\
benwerd 11y ago
The indieweb is a social web where everyone runs their own profile, on their own (sub)domain, potentially on their own servers - while being able to talk to their friends as easily as they could on Facebook or Twitter. All based on open technologies, rough consensus, user-centered design and running code, rather than endless mailing lists and technical debate.
- pXMzR2A 11y ago
  That sounds like (GNU Social) + (Diaspora) - (Distributed Content) Sounds great until your (sub)domain(s) gets censored or targeted.

mrspeaker 11y ago

Arrgh! I'm very intrigued, but have read that page 3 times and have no idea what it's about - is it just "add microformats to your website and presto: the internet was the indieweb all along!" or am I missing something?!

pmlnr 11y ago
It's a little deeper than that. For short the end goal would be for everyone to have their own domain - a website - and that domain should be the centrum & origin of their activity on the intenet. This means that the website would be the tool to send and receive interactions; it would be the storage for all one's content. This is to avoid those situations when content is removed, censored, etc. on a silo/social network; to have control over your own data and to have a mesh-network-like layout of individual sites that are more not single point of failures in opposition of gigantic monoculture that currently rule the internet. The reference for the 'like it was all along' is a reminder that a very long time ago the internet was a network of individual websites and you were not bound to use centralized services from corporations.
- BillinghamJ 11y ago
  How does this differ from how Diaspora works?
  - pmlnr 11y ago
    diaspora is an open source social network. It's not a site for an individual, unlike, for example, http://withknown.com/ http://withknown.com/, WordPress, and the rest. My personal opinion behind the indieweb is here, in case it makes more sense like this: https://petermolnar.eu/journal/indieweb-decentralize-web-centralizing-ourselves/ https://petermolnar.eu/journal/indieweb-decentralize-web-cen...
  - benwerd 11y ago
    Diaspora is one product, whereas the indie web is a set of really lightweight technologies that allow you to join in from virtually any website. It's not dependent on any one vendor or project. I think the coolest bit is that each of the pieces is so simple that a coder can get up and running from scratch in an afternoon. That's very different to a lot of the federated social web technologies to date.

meira 11y ago

The main point about IndieWeb is to create authorship over published content. Silos (other social networks and startups) are only tools to syndicate it. IndieWebCamp is a bunch of people developing tools to support this endeavour. There is an IRC channel in freenode: #IndieWebCamp & #IndieChat

lowglow 11y ago

Here is something that helps explain the who, what, why a bit more. https://indiewebcamp.com/ https://indiewebcamp.com/

Xeoncross 11y ago

Seems like blog + XFN + pingbacks with a new name..? I would love it if everyone could have their own domain name + server - but this isn't practical at this point in time. Why not work on making running a server + website easier? - https://github.com/Xeoncross/lowendscript https://github.com/Xeoncross/lowendscript - https://gist.github.com/Xeoncross/3b8ed1d094707bc0dff8 https://gist.github.com/Xeoncross/3b8ed1d094707bc0dff8 - https://github.com/Xeoncross/simpleserversetup https://github.com/Xeoncross/simpleserversetup

pmlnr 11y ago
It's not a new name; it's more like 2.0 for blog + XFN + pingbacks, reducing the design flows in the earlier implementations.
pmlnr 11y ago
by the way, the author of pingback is doing webmentions intead already ;) http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2014/11/29/enabling-webmentions/ http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2014/11/29/enabling-webmention...
groks 11y ago
> I would love it if everyone could have their own domain name + server - but this isn't practical at this point in time. You don't need to run your own server. Point the domain name you own at Squarespace (or Wordpress.org, or hosted Wordpress, or any service you like...) for a low-tech, free or low-cost website where you decide what happens. Move when you change your mind.
BorisMelnik 11y ago
interesting questions, was thinking the same. although hosting is getting ridiculously cheap, you can have a great WordPress box setup on digital ocean for a few dollars per month. Small investment if you are committed to the industry. For the average non-internet joe maybe not, but if you are in the web dev/ design / SEO / marketing niche I'd say it is a must have to have your own hosting.
benwerd 11y ago
People are also working on that. The full stack needs an upgrade, and it's nice to see that happening across the board. It's more than blog + XFN + pingbacks. The combination of technologies really does allow for decentralized social activities (not just replies), potentially in real-time. If you don't want to mess with a server, we started an indieweb platform at https://withknown.com https://withknown.com. You can always take all your data and move to your own server later on.

z3t4 11y ago

I think more people should be self-hosting. You are probably already paying for a 24/7 Internet access. And your router is probably more then capable of hosting a web server.

shortstuffsushi 11y ago
Many ISPs (at least in the US, or Wisconsin) don't allow you to do this, and block incoming HTTP/HTTPS traffic.
- relaxitup 11y ago
  I imagine there is some Cloudflare magic that could take care of this problem (whilst your home webserver running on an alternate port) ?
  - shortstuffsushi 11y ago
    Yes, using alternative ports does sometimes work. In the past, I had used NoIP or whatever the name was at that point to route incoming from 80 to a non-standard port. CloudFlare could probably do the same, but then have you defeated the goal of self hosting, since you have a provider in front of your site?
- mikro2nd 11y ago
  Your own server (RasPi?) + pagekite.net will solve this.

ChrisArchitect 11y ago

I get this, it just seems like a battle sometimes. If you're just looking for somewhere to post some content/share an article/thought..... Also, and this is particularly relevant here on HN - what if you want to post some content that might be of interest on HN but you don't want to overload your personal site with traffic? Let one of the so called 'content silos' worry about the uptime. Also, why not just come out and say who this is about - the facebooks/mediums/tumblrs etc

benwerd 11y ago
If you're just looking for somewhere to post some content, we run an indieweb-compatible service: https://withknown.com https://withknown.com ;) It's about not having control over your representation online. For me, it's also about freedom of identity, and freedom to dictate your own content standards.

humanrebar 11y ago

I like the idea of the IndieWeb, but I'm also a big believer in discretion-oriented sharing. People don't just walk out on the street and start yelling facts and opinions at each other. They target their message for the audience. And if the audience is everyone, then the message tends to suffer. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't really see myself participating much until I can control who sees what information. I'd like sharing photos of my family with family and friends. I don't care to post them publicly. I like discussing politics... with people who can handle a political discussion without hurt feelings or pointless bickering. The IndieWeb makes a lot of sense for public conversation, though. If I were into blogging, writing, or otherwise producing content as a job or serious hobby, I'd be all over it.

benwerd 11y ago
We're working on that. :)

pc2g4d 11y ago

This seems like a great platform for spam, so if it's to succeed long-term there will need to be good antispam tools. Seems like a cool development, though, and I hope it works out.

benwerd 11y ago
There are some pretty good proposals about spam. So far it hasn't been a problem, but it's good to have tools in place.

chrisatthestudy 11y ago

Am I completely misunderstanding what this is supposed to be, or am I really so old that I remember what everyone else has forgotten? What you're calling the 'IndieWeb', where everyone has their own website and domain, and hosts their own content on it, we had a name for that. We called it the World Wide Web.

humanrebar 11y ago
Yeah, it's an attempt to revive the federated model of the WWW.
benwerd 11y ago
That is exactly the point.

ac360 11y ago

I love the IndieWeb movement. I don’t know if you guys have meet-ups, but if you’re in SF, I’d love to meet you. I’m one of the founders of Servant – https://www.servant.co https://www.servant.co – It’s a personal database which you can give apps permission to read and write to. The goal is to allow people to bring their own database to the apps they use and disconnect it whenever they’re done with an app. We’re in the centralization camp, but we share many goal/themes with the IndieWeb movement. - Austen austen [at] servant.co

willnorris 11y ago
There are the actual Indie Web Camps that occur several times throughout the year. And each month there is the Homebrew Website Club Meetup (http://indiewebcamp.com/next-hwc http://indiewebcamp.com/next-hwc, named after the Homebrew Computer Club).

fredfoobar42 11y ago

Do I need to have this WebReply crap? I have my own domain, and I don't have comments, because I want to own every pixel of the thing.