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Rediscovering the Small Web

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Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#11

Post by kickscondor »

stavros wrote: post #9

I've been thinking about this for ages, and I want my own contribution to this to be a simple webring service. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, a webring was a simple circular linked list. You had a link on your knitting-themed site to the "next knitting-themed site", that site had a link to the next one, etc. To join the ring, you just emailed someone and said "hey, I, too, have a knitting-themed site, can you…

There was a small resurgence of webrings in last year:

Hotline Webring: https://hotlinewebring.club

XXIIVV Webring: https://webring.xxiivv.com

Weird Wide Webring: https://weirdwidewebring.net

I'm personally more into personal directories and blogrolls than these random clicks - but they still seem to be a good way to put together a small community. (And this post isn't meant to discourage you - but rather to encourage you to form your own.)

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#12

Post by kickscondor »

If you're interested in recent innovations on this front: (rather than just retreading the same Web as before)

* Beaker (https://beakerbrowser.com) the peer-to-peer browser just released their beta release - and it has some exciting features. Particularly the built-in editor, meaning you can edit, serve and read your pages all from the browser. (Blogging in Beaker is as simple as visiting: hyper://a8e9bd0f4df60ed5246a1b1f53d51a1feaeb1315266f769ac218436f12fda830/. And the posts are stored locally.)

* https://special.fish/ This completely low-tech social network has taken off. The innovation here is that it's all just focused on profile pages - not feeds of random posts.

* There's a growing subculture of public Tiddlywikis (philosopher.life, sphygm.us, etc) - rather than focusing on protocols and APIs, they are much more focused on how to organize and style personal hypertext.

* As for RSS, well, as HN custom insists, I am also commenting to plug my own fraidyc.at. See, you knew it was here.

* On a related note, I've also been working on an RSS/Atom extension to handle ephemeral posts: live streams, "stories", pinned posts, etc. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/wiki/RSS-Atom-Exten...

* There's also a forum on tiny personal link directories that's been forming at https://forum.indieseek.xyz. The idea here is to use Yahoo! or DMOZ style link directories at a smaller scale, to catalog corners of the Web. (Note that this whole comment itself is a kind of small 'directory'. Rather than an algorithm stepping in to show you 'related' stuff, I have.)

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#13

Post by michaelyoshika »

stavros wrote: post #9

I've been thinking about this for ages, and I want my own contribution to this to be a simple webring service. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, a webring was a simple circular linked list. You had a link on your knitting-themed site to the "next knitting-themed site", that site had a link to the next one, etc. To join the ring, you just emailed someone and said "hey, I, too, have a knitting-themed site, can you…

Great idea! Renaissance of the original Internet.

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#14

Post by StavrosK »

kickscondor wrote: post #11
stavros wrote: post #9

I've been thinking about this for ages, and I want my own contribution to this to be a simple webring service. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, a webring was a simple circular linked list. You had a link on your knitting-themed site to the "next knitting-themed site", that site had a link to the next one, etc. To join the ring, you just emailed someone and said "hey, I, too, have a knitting-themed site, can you…

There was a small resurgence of webrings in last year: Hotline Webring: https://hotlinewebring.club XXIIVV Webring: https://webring.xxiivv.com Weird Wide Webring: https://weirdwidewebring.net I'm personally more into personal directories and blogrolls than these random clicks - but they still seem to be a good way to put together a small community. (And this post isn't meant to discourage you - but rather to encourag…

Hmm, that's very useful information, thank you! Personal directories seem more useful and easier to put together, I think you're right.

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#15

Post by bovermyer »

livatlantis wrote: post #8
bovermyer wrote: post #7

My own website is starting to "revert" to this concept. A few years ago, it was primarily an about page and a resume. Now it has a blog, a links page, and a "knowledge base" that's mostly just notes for myself. I'm too burnt out on web "best practices" to care about that for my personal sites anymore. If you're curious: https://benovermyer.com

Indeed! It's so much more interesting to learn about what people are interested in, beyond just their professional competencies. I really like that you have your guiding philosophies, hobbies, languages and even Hogwarts house on your about me page. Kinda makes me want to make a more detailed about me page. If I enjoy these kinds of details, surely some other people will too. Might do it this weekend.

That'd be cool to see!

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#16

Post by akavel »

StavrosK wrote: post #14
kickscondor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a small resurgence of webrings in last year: Hotline Webring: https://hotlinewebring.club XXIIVV Webring: https://webring.xxiivv.com Weird Wide Webring: https://weirdwidewebring.net I'm personally more into personal directories and blogrolls than these random clicks - but they still seem to be a good way to put together a small community. (And this post isn't meant to discourage you - but rather to encourag…

Hmm, that's very useful information, thank you! Personal directories seem more useful and easier to put together, I think you're right.

Personally I also started longing for webrings recently; they seem more personal to me than directories, and there's more excitement of surprise and discovery. Also I think they're more "slow paced" and involved: you have to go through them one by one, whereas with directories you may look at the titles and already start making judgements based on the titles alone.

I think I'd say there's space for directories (again???) and there's space for webrings (again!). Though it kinda feels weird to me how Google removed the need for directories and webrings at a time (and I distinctly remember the relief), and now Google results got so crappy (destroyed by SEO?) that the need starts to come back :/ such that even I myself feel it.

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#17

Post by StavrosK »

akavel wrote: post #16
StavrosK wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, that's very useful information, thank you! Personal directories seem more useful and easier to put together, I think you're right.

Personally I also started longing for webrings recently; they seem more personal to me than directories, and there's more excitement of surprise and discovery. Also I think they're more "slow paced" and involved: you have to go through them one by one, whereas with directories you may look at the titles and already start making judgements based on the titles alone. I think I'd say there's space for directories (again…

> now Google results got so crappy (destroyed by SEO?) that the need starts to come back

That is exactly my thought process. You can't get quality content on Google any more, it's all lowest-common-denominator paid content from huge content farms.

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#19

Post by livatlantis »

akavel wrote: post #16
StavrosK wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, that's very useful information, thank you! Personal directories seem more useful and easier to put together, I think you're right.

Personally I also started longing for webrings recently; they seem more personal to me than directories, and there's more excitement of surprise and discovery. Also I think they're more "slow paced" and involved: you have to go through them one by one, whereas with directories you may look at the titles and already start making judgements based on the titles alone. I think I'd say there's space for directories (again…

I agree that webrings had a surprise factor, but like clicking on "surprise me" on https://wiby.me! (Or at least, that's the closest almost-analogous thing I use today).

Curlie (https://curlie.org/) is the closet I've found to a proper curated directory, and it's really quite good.

Re: Rediscovering the Small Web

#20

Post by livatlantis »

kickscondor wrote: post #11
stavros wrote: post #9

I've been thinking about this for ages, and I want my own contribution to this to be a simple webring service. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, a webring was a simple circular linked list. You had a link on your knitting-themed site to the "next knitting-themed site", that site had a link to the next one, etc. To join the ring, you just emailed someone and said "hey, I, too, have a knitting-themed site, can you…

There was a small resurgence of webrings in last year: Hotline Webring: https://hotlinewebring.club XXIIVV Webring: https://webring.xxiivv.com Weird Wide Webring: https://weirdwidewebring.net I'm personally more into personal directories and blogrolls than these random clicks - but they still seem to be a good way to put together a small community. (And this post isn't meant to discourage you - but rather to encourag…

Oh I like the Hotline one especially! Easy to implement and some of the sites on there are very cool indeed. Thanks for these links.
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