Nov 30th, 2020 - Category: Communication
From Wikipedia: “Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency.” Most people’s experience with the Internet these days is far from the concept of self-sufficiency. Google News is a one-stop website for everything from global to local news so why bother with the BBC, New York Times, or a local paper? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok are where people share the stories, photos, emotions, and videos of their lives (and unfortunately sometimes get their news as well). Netflix has largely replaced theaters and network television for many. Amazon provides access to millions of sellers around the world and includes helpful reviews (mostly) from actual buyers of products. More and more going online today means accessing an information service curated by some of the largest companies on the planet. Even those who want to publish their own website are immediately greeted on Google by a wide variety of “website builders” like GoDaddy or Squarespace where “for only $9.99 a month” you can have “everything you need to grow online.” And if you don’t like Squarespace, there are dozens of alternatives like Wix, Weebly, WordPress.com, Duda, Portfoliobox, etc.
The problem is that “creating your own website” on one of these services still really isn’t self-sufficient. You might spend years building your online masterpiece with brilliant writing, compelling photos, and sophisticated formatting, but what happens if Squarespace goes out of business, how easy would it be to move your homestead somewhere else? Also it seems that lately more and more people are asking the bigger question, “Why can’t I make a website that really is mine?” I thought about this question extensively while creating a course for a local Maker Space called “DIY Websites” where I taught students how to carve out their own little corner of the Internet complete with their own domain name and simple, self-sufficient website. Then today I came across the article “Building your own website is cool again, and it’s changing the whole internet.” If you’ve been thinking about creating your own website this article is worth a read because it’s both inspirational and practical in the sense that it provides some concrete alternatives to old-school “blogging.” By the way, I’m not knocking blogging which is still alive and well. I use the Feedly blog reader to follow about a dozen interesting people including a few larger websites like ArsTechnica and MacRumors, it’s a fast way to read headlines without the deluge of ads and graphics.
As for my class, it went well and I’m thinking of turning it into a free online course. Please let me know if you have an interest! In the meantime, here’s a creative thought-piece about a techie from the year 2000 having a conversation with his current self in the year 2020, “Web Conversations With the Year 2000.” My favorite is his year 2000 self asking, “And speaking of big web things, did AOL win out over Yahoo? Did they merge to compete with Microsoft? We used to joke about that.” Ah, how quickly times change!