Getting to know IndieWeb

Once I was reading about how Amazon gave a platform for many small businesses to sell products online and how it helped them. You might even have heard that, but think about it, whenever we buy something from a small business on Amazon, we often relate it as we bought it from Amazon and never really remember the seller or the creator. This might seem trivial, but imagine if you were a seller of handmade crafts on Amazon and you had a loyal customer base and a good reputation. What if Amazon suddenly banned you from selling on their platform, and you lost your source of income and your hard work? Or what if you had to lower your prices to compete with other sellers? Or pay a fee to Amazon and limit your profit margin? Or what if you couldn't sell your products anywhere else for a lower price than on Amazon , and you were stuck with their rules? Or they suddenly change terms and don't pay you? Amazon is one of many examples to show the control of big corporations have on us.

Every silo site which is not yours, your data might feel like yours, but it is not.

"Writing on your own website associates your thoughts and ideas with you as a person. Having a distinct website design helps strengthen that association. Writing for another publication, you get a little circular avatar at the beginning of the post and a brief bio at the end of the post, and that's about it. People will remember the publication, but probably not your name."

When you know this, you want to change it and do something to change it. You also want your loved ones to be aware of it and own their data. The good news is, you are not alone. It's wonderful to connect with people who share your vision and work together for a better future. When I first got to know about IndieWeb It felt like a hope.

What is IndieWeb?

As Indie web is about ownership, Your content is yours, and You are in control.

"The IndieWeb is a community of independent & personal websites connected by simple standards, based on the principles of: owning your domain & using it as your primary identity, publishing on your ownsite (optionally syndicating elsewhere), and owning your data."

Why do we need IndieWeb?

There are many reasons why It is good to have your space on the web where you own what is yours. I am just listing down a few.

1. If you do not want to part of social media where the more you spend time and contribute, the more they learn about you and sell you (sell your browsing habits to advertisers).
2. If you don't want Silos, control your experience of the web and decide what you see and where your content goes.
3. If you don't want to be part of evil where once you create a community, they keep it under paywall or authwall and leave you choose to obey their rules or lose the community.
4. If you don't want to need permission to communicate, create and innovate with people around the globe with the internet.
5. If you don't want to lose all your data because the company gone out of business.
6. If you want to show that you are not consumed by the Silos.
7. If you want different monetization for your content in your way.

It's not just ownership

Identity

Having a personal domain, which is the initial step of Indie web. It helps you to have more credibility, improves personal branding and makes it easy to find you.

Syndication

If you want to let your friends read your posts, their way using social media like Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter etc. You can post content on your site and publish links to 3rd party silos using POSSE (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) And can back feed the post activity back to your website. Now we can have all in one place, IndieWeb comments, and comments on your POSSE copies.

Web Mentions

Web Mentions is a simple communication protocol between websites that enables cross-site conversations and website can display comments, likes, or other response. With Web mentions you are better connected, you decide what and how to display the interaction on the content you own.

IndieAuth

IndieAuth provides the ability to use your website (domain) to authenticate yourself on the web using a federated login protocol for Web sign-in.

MicroFormats

Add Microformats to your existing HTML to use structured data from your site to allow tools like feed readers.

Finally, It can be easy too…

I know many might think,

• It is easy to create a silo account and post what they want with few steps.
• I am not a celebrity or a company to own a domain.
• I am not a web developer and I don't know how to do it.

There can many reasons and excuses we give ourselves to start. Even I am new to this, yet to understand a lot. Having a sense of ownership gives pleasure and made me take my first step, you can find yours.

There are many tools, step-by-step guides and help available in the community to make it easy. Many smart people are contributing to make it easier so that we can own what is ours.

Do it for yourself, have fun and pride creating something that is yours, and It will get easy.