I love this footer that Manu has started adding to the bottom of the posts in his RSS feed:
Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You’re awesome.
The old, weird, indie web never went away. RSS never went away, and neither did its friend Atom. Blogrolls and directories are re-emerging as alternatives to search engines for discovering websites that won’t play the SEO game.
This isn’t just Generation X nostalgia. Yes, my feed reader and Mastodon timeline do seem to skew towards my generation, but as I’ve been spending more time with the IndieWeb community I’ve been observing younger enthusiasts who are eager to build modern alternatives to Big Tech. There are plenty of technologists and metadata nerds who are bringing contemporary standards and best practices around accessibility and semantic and linked data to the DIY ethos of the old web. But there are also plenty of website builders who are here to revive the creative, colourful web of the GeoCities era.
The old web never went away, and it remains open to everyone. Come and join us!
- Seirdy reminded me that webrings are back too.