An in-depth look at Indie Web Camp Brighton with some suggestions for improving future events. Also, this insightful nugget:
There was something really energising about being with a group of people that had a diverse range of backgrounds, ideas, and interests, but who all shared a specific outlook on one problem space. We definitely didn’t all agree on what the ideal solution to a given problem was, but we were at least approaching topics from a similar starting point, which was great.
Hand-coded, syndicated, and above all personal websites are exemplary: They let users of the internet to be autonomous, experiment, have ownership, learn, share, find god, find love, find purpose. Bespoke, endlessly tweaked, eternally redesigned, built-in-public, surprising UI and delightful UX. The personal website is a staunch undying answer to everything the corporate and industrial web has taken from us.
Start a blog. Start one because the practice of writing at length, for an audience you respect, about things that matter to you, is itself valuable. Start one because owning your own platform is a form of independence that becomes more important as centralized platforms become less trustworthy. Start one because the format shapes the thought, and this format is good for thinking.
In which I answer questions about blogging.
I’ve put a copy of this on my own site too.
Welcome back, Jason!
Ah, this is wonderful! Matt takes us on the quarter-decade journey of his brilliant blog (which chimes a lot with my own experience—my journal turns 25 next year)…
Slowly, slowly, the web was taken over by platforms. Your feeling of success is based on your platform’s algorithm, which may not have your interests at heart. Feeding your words to a platform is a vote for its values, whether you like it or not. And they roach-motel you by owning your audience, making you feel that it’s a good trade because you get “discovery.” (Though I know that chasing popularity is a fool’s dream.)
Writing a blog on your own site is a way to escape all of that. Plus your words build up over time. That’s unique. Nobody else values your words like you do.
Blogs are a backwater (the web itself is a backwater) but keeping one is a statement of how being online can work. Blogging as a kind of Amish performance of a better life.
Answers to some questions about blogging.
Some handpicked highlights from my blog.
Write for yourself.
The Patterns Day conference, the workshop the day after, and an Indie Web Camp on the weekend.
A collection of hyperlinks to collections of hyperlinks.