Hi All! 🤗
Every day, we browse the Web and scroll our timelines. And every day, we find even more interesting websites, blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts, and other insights and ideas that we want to document, preserve, and share. The most obvious way to save something of interest still is to create a good old bookmark. And there are many different ways to do this.
First of all, you could save your bookmarks in your browser. While there is generally nothing wrong about that and I know many people for whom this solution works well, it can still be a bit cumbersome to organize your bookmarks this way, especially if you want to also add tags or notes. You could also save your favorites in a read-it-later app like Pocket or Omnivore. Or, you could save and manage your favorite links with bookmarking services like Raindrop, Pinboard, or the open-source tool LinkAce.
But all those solutions are missing an important bit: the social aspect of bookmarking, also known as sharing links with others. Once upon a system time, sites like Zootool, StumbleUpon, or Delicious not only let us save bookmarks, but also made it possible to discover new, interesting links that others had saved. This social aspect, this way of curating and sharing a collection of links that others can follow, has become a lost art.
Own Your Web – Issue 9: We ❤️ RSS
Hi All! 🤗
In the last issue, we looked at blogrolls as one way to improve the visibility and discoverability of our sites. Whether or not you want to add a blogroll to your site is a matter of personal preference. But there is something else which probably everyone with a personal website should do: adding an RSS feed.
What’s RSS?
RSS, which stands for either “Really Simple Syndication” or also “RDF Site Summary” or “Rich Site Summary”, is a way to distribute the content of your site through a feed that people can subscribe to. Basically, you provide a feed of your website’s content that gets updated every time you publish something new. People can subscribe to that feed – and the feeds of other websites – and then read all updates in their feed reader of choice, all in one place. This way, readers don’t have to repeatedly visit various websites and other sources of interest to look if new posts have been published, but can instead pull in all new posts automatically. For you as a publisher, this also has the huge advantage that people who enjoy reading your posts will automatically get to see them once their feed reader updates all sources.
Own Your Web – Issue 8: On a Roll
Hi All! 🤗
“Where have all the websites gone?”
“Websites, as we know them, are dead.”
“Blogging is dead.”
Own Your Web – Issue 7: What Is It For?
Hi All! 🤗
One question I’ve heard repeatedly from people getting started with their personal website is “what pages and sections – like blog, photos, about me – does my site need to have?” I asked myself the exact same question when I first started with my site. I looked at other people’s websites and eagerly listened to folks arguing that a personal website must have this section or that section. But I’ve since come to the conclusion that maybe this isn’t how you should approach it. Maybe, the first question you should ask yourself about your site is:
What is it for?
Answering this simple but powerful question will help you get clarity about quite a few things, like:
Own Your Web – Issue 6: The Year of the Personal Website
Hi All! 🤗
At the beginning of this year, I wrote in a blog post which I titled The Year of the Personal Website:
In the search for a permanent home on the web, more and more people are now rediscovering the personal website as a place to share and document their thoughts and publish their work. I’ve written at length before about why this is such a good idea: Your personal website is a place that provides immense creative freedom and control. It’s a place to write, create, and share whatever you like, without the need to ask for anyone’s permission. It is also the perfect place to explore and try new things, like different types of posts, different styles, and new web technologies. It is your playground, your platform, your personal corner on the Web.
So how about we make 2023 the year of the personal website? The year in which we launch our first site or redesign our old one, publish a little more often, and add RSS and Webmentions to our websites so that we can write posts back and forth. The year we make our sites more fussy, more quirky, and more personal. The year we document what we improved, share what we learned, and help each other getting started. The year we finally create a community of critical mass around all our personal websites. The year we take back our Web.
Own Your Web – Issue 5: For Everyone
Own Your Web – Issue 4: First We Pick Our Tools
Hi All! 🤗
In the previous issues, we looked at how having a personal website can change your life and what’s in a domain name. Once you’re fired up and registered your domain though, your next decision is probably the one which will have the biggest overall impact and also something that a lot of people asked me about via email: what tech stack, platform, content management system, framework, static site generator and so forth should you use to actually build your site?
This is a tough one, because picking the right solution involves a lot of considerations, like:
Does the system have all the features I need?
How easy and how quick will it be to set up my site?
Do I have the necessary skills and technical expertise?
Will it be hard to customize the site to my liking?
Do I need a database? And what is a database?
How convenient is it to publish new posts?
How well does the system age? And are there regular updates?
And how much maintenance will I have to do to keep the site alive?
Own Your Web – Issue 3: Life-Changing
Hi All! 🤗
So, you registered a domain. And you started working on your personal site. Maybe you already got a first version of your site online. Perhaps you even published a few posts. But suddenly, there’s this question in your head:
“But – is it worth it?”
Almost everyone who starts building a personal website sooner or later asks themselves this question. And it’s a good, an important question. You invest a lot of time and energy into your site, after all. And those are precious resources which we better spend on something that is worthwhile.
Own Your Web – Issue 2: What’s in a Name?
Hi All! 🤗
Let’s talk about one of the first things to consider when setting up your personal website: the name, or to be more specific, the domain name. Picking a domain name is something people often struggle with, because it comes with a few questions: What is a “good” domain name for your site? Should you use your real name or a nickname or pseudonym? Does it make sense to include your profession or relevant keywords in the URL? Or should you even get creative and invent a unique or funny name?
That’s a lot of things to consider. So I asked the people of Mastodon: what is your website’s URL and why did you pick it? And are you happy with it or would you choose a different domain name today? And (almost) half of Mastodon replied! Reading through the answers is really interesting if you want to get an idea of which domain names people chose and why.
It doesn’t come as a surprise that many opt for some combination of first and/or last name. Although a few people also called this a “boring” option, it is definitely a safe bet, especially if you are using your personal site professionally in some form. But a lot of folks are also very happy with using a nickname or alias.
Own Your Web – Issue 1: Your Superpower
Hi All!
Welcome to Own Your Web! 🎉
First of all, I’d like to thank you again for signing up! 🤗 When I shared the link to the newsletter last weekend, I did not expect that so many people would subscribe so quickly. I’m overwhelmed by the response and I see it as a sign that the topic of the newsletter hits a nerve.
It looks like I’m not the only one who is unsatisfied with the current state of social media and the Open Web. Many of us share that vision of a Web that lets everyone participate, a Web that is empowering and full of creative ideas, a Web that is home to respectful and welcoming communities, and a Web where people can truly own their work and the content they create and publish. And you know what? Drowned out by the noise on the large, attention-grabbing, enshittificated social networks, that version of the Web still exists. On our personal websites.
