Blogosphere to IndieWeb

The blogopshere era. In my mind from early 2000s to the early/mid 2010s. I kept a blog back then. Blogger was the first platform I tried. Before much time passed I jumped to WordPress and stayed with it. Having my own domain name, control over where I hosted the blog, and liberation from Google's growing influence and control. This all informed my thinking at the time.

Whatever I posted to Blogger has long been lost to me. Whilst my musings now are still are poorly composed, roughly thought out brain farts, posts to Blogger were nothing more than low grade graffiti on the internet. Kilroy woz here. The posts I made to the WordPress blog have though been preserved albeit in my clumsy, clunky way of saving xml files and archiving the entire folder structure of my site. The files have pretty much been languishing in digital perpetuity since 2020. I say pretty much because the blog has been online in a couple of ways since then but not so that it might come to the attention of anyone.

As time passed I journaled instead. In a similar way with blogging this started out using a platform which I later abandoned for the want of a solution that did not lead to reliance on an over controlling, privacy infringing entity. I chose to go with StandardNotes about six years ago and have stuck with it. The reasons for this choice would I guess be suitable fodder for another blog post.

However, there is relevance of mentioning something about StandardNotes that pertains to this post. StandardNotes has the Listed blogging platform. It's an offering that comes with the service regardless if you choose to use StandardNotes for free, opt to pay or go the self hosting route. Essentially it enables you to blog to the platform directly from StandardNotes. As close to frictionless as I think it could be. No surprises that I have used Listed as a blogging platform. I've created, maintained and later deleted at least a couple of blog spaces on Listed. I have a couple going right now. The one you are reading and one I keep private. The story behind the private one is, well it's private. All I'll say about that now is that it's private to focus the energy in it on me. Inner work and all that.

My departure from the blogosphere coincided with an overwhelm from corporate social media. Whether that was simply correlation or a cause I don't know. Likely reasons include a fading desire to spray my musk over the internet, the effort it takes to articulate ideas, critical self judgement, and the ache that comes from wanting to connect but not being adept at doing so. Forays into social media have been fleeting. Disdain for the commercial side, projection of my 'dark' shadow, and the struggles I've had with making and sustaining meaningful connections all being reasons for this.

Regardless I felt the urge to have another go. I started using Mastodon again in October last year. Still not getting it such that I capture and roll with the zeitgeist. I have though become reacquainted with the blogosphere. Turns out since I was gone it's evolved into what's now called the IndieWeb. I've been reading more personal blogs over the last month than ever before. I'm loving them.

Being distracted is I think intrinsic to being human. Choosing what I am distracted by has become more important to me over the years. Right now I feel happy and comfortable with the distraction of an RSS feed of personal blogs. What's more is that this distraction has created some meaningful traction. I've felt the pull to associate with and become part of the IndieWeb (again?). To this end I've started to excavate the posts I made to the blog I kept from 12/2006 through to 03/2020. About 500 in all. It's a slow process to savor. This is where all the posts from that era on this blog are coming from. I started to write this post to simply explain that. I digressed.