A long time ago, I was pretty tuned into what was happening in the content management world in general and with blogging in particular. At the time, my job involved building publishing and editorial systems, and my hobby was building web content management systems, into which a blogging engine fit neatly. Fast forward twenty-five years—through the social media boom, the shift away from personal websites, and the backlash against social media platforms—and it feels like we’re coming full circle. Additionally, I’ve started on a full rewrite of that old but kept-up-to-date blogging engine.
The rewrite has been a long time coming for a number of reasons, but mostly because it’s built on an aging tech stack that I am becoming less and less enthusiastic about maintaining. Additionally, I’ve learned a lot about software development in the intervening years and though I have kept the application updated and refactored as needed, there are plenty of things that make me cringe. Another reason: over the past several years I have written less and less code as part of my job, to the point that it hasn’t been an expectation of my role for the last four years. I lead an organization of technical people: software and QA engineers, and I need to stay technical—this is one way for me to do that.
There’s something else that has reignited my enthusiasm in this space: POSSE and IndieWeb. To be clear, neither is a new concept, just incredibly relevant and timely.
From the IndieWeb website:
The IndieWeb is a people-focused alternative to the “corporate web.”
It goes on to say:
We are a community of independent and personal websites based on the principles of: owning your domain and using it as your primary online identity, publishing on your own site first (optionally elsewhere), and owning your content.
In this, we are aligned.
The idea of owning your domain, publishing on your own site first, and owning your content leads us directly to POSSE.
POSSE is an acronym for Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. Further, POSSE is:
the practice of posting content on your own site first, then publishing copies or sharing links to third parties with original post links to provide viewers a path to directly interacting with your content
This sounds good, doesn’t it? I think so.
The rewrite of my blogging engine is coming along, and I should point out that it is more properly a web content management system and not just a blog engine. I am incorporating as many principles of the IndieWeb as I can and implementing as many of its building blocks, including webmentions and web sign-in. As extra credit, I recently purchased a new personal short domain, bjd.fyi, and I am in the process of building a URL shortener and redirector. Naturally, I am calling it URLShorty.
I will post updates right here at my site and syndicate them elsewhere. Keep an eye out here, on my feed, or on the social platforms listed on my contact page.