"You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world [wide web]." — Morpheus, The Matrix
Why Indie Web
- Your account was frozen because Google decided that you violated the Google+ ToS (or violated their GMail ToS) and now you can't login to all those services you signed up for... using your Google ID. (more: 2012-04-14 [4], 2011-12-11: [5], [6], [7]: "There's no legal reason behind Google's decision to block my daughter's account. They've chosen to implement these age restrictions in this particular way. They've chosen to lock up my daughter's data without warning. They've chosen to threaten to delete the data."). Maybe you got bumped off Twitter for tweeting too much.
- Your content was taken and its ownership errantly transferred to a big content copyright holder / media company. (YouTube video upload, 2012)
- You aren't happy that silo owners could use your work without compensation. (Instagram's terms of service change in January 2013 will allow them to use your work for "in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you" - see [8]).
- You aren't happy with the community or perceived community that comes baked in with the silo-based tools you use to publish. Perhaps you want to share photos of things you like without people making assumptions regarding your gender or race or social class (see danah boyd's The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online).
Whatever the reason, you're done with sharecropping your content, your identity, your self.
Our content is becoming more important, and sometimes even critical to our lives. It is not secure in the hands of random startups, organizations and web companies. We should be the holders of our own data.
Focusing on the Positive
- Brett Slatkin: Focusing on the Positives: Why I Have My Own Website
- Fix links when they break. Another advantage of hosting your own content, you can fix links from your posts to others' sites when those links break (e.g. compare j.mp link vs longurl(edited 2013-058) on http://tantek.com/2010/145/t1/algorithmic-permashortlinks-diso-2-interview-ownyourdata). Tantek 16:58, 27 February 2013 (PST)
- Better UI/UX. E.g. better navigation and embedding than Twitter, a simple citation UI [9].
- Longer notes. Host notes on your own site that are longer (perhaps even just slightly) than the 140 character Twitter limitation . Tantek 16:58, 27 February 2013 (PST)
- Richer content embedding. Auto-embed images, video, and any other rich content you want from your own notes, instead of waiting for Twitter to implement it. E.g. compare original and tweet copy. Tantek 16:58, 27 February 2013 (PST)
- Link destinations see you / your site as a referrer and credit you with sending traffic. Some silos (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) wrap all links published in posts with their own link-redirectors (t.co, www.facebook.com/l.php?u=, www.youtube.com/redirect?q=) thus making the link destination think they're getting traffic from the silo in general, rather than from you and your profile. Links on your own site, however, notify destinations through the HTTP REFERER (sic) that your site (and thus you) are sending them traffic directly. Tantek 15:09, 13 March 2013 (PDT)
- Amazon affiliate links work. As part of their link-wrapping strategy, silos (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) may strip affiliate information from Amazon links, and/or only link to the where an Amazon link redirects to, and/or add their own silo-specific Amazon affiliate code to all the Amazon links in your posts! When you publish Amazon affiliate links in posts on your own site, the links work as expected. Tantek 15:09, 13 March 2013 (PDT)
- APIs only expose some aspects of your data: having your data under your control allows you to add new functionality to that data, adding new methods of discovery and connection based on the specific shape of that content.
- ...
Why Indie Web Camp?
- You're here because you know this and you want to design and build a web presence where you're in control.
- Maybe you bought your own domain for vanity reasons but now want to put it to good use.
We, the organizers of IndieWebCamp want that as well, and have started building it for ourselves.
Join us and together we can grow the IndieWeb.
(More motivational examples/citations linked from: "Itches & Scratches: sharecropping and site death" - 2010-199 Federated Social Web Summit talk by Tantek)
- Because building the IndieWeb is a continuous process. The IndieWebCamp event is inspiring, but we need to carry on doing so for more than a few days a year when we meet in real life.
- Because we can support one another and share the best way to do things.
- As we discover new ways to do things, we can document the crap out of them.
- Because some of you live out in the middle of nowhere. You are welcome to join in too!
see also
