---
alias: "The IndieWeb, Personal Web, Personal Websites"
public: "true"
slug: "the-small-web"
title: "The Small Web"
---
# The Small Web

> Referenced by: [This Knowledge Hub](/garden/this-knowledge-hub/index.md)

Small personal websites created by individuals
- A callback to how the web was before social media, which homogenized content
- These pages are diverse and typically won't have ads or marketers
	- Comparable to [The Cozy Web](/garden/the-cozy-web/index.md) in that way
- <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/00qwzmMrtok" title="" frameBorder="0" allowFullScreen />

[My Personal Website](/garden/my-personal-website/index.md)

The small web as a whole is [Freeform](/garden/freeform/index.md)
- Individual sites may be [Chronological](/garden/chronological/index.md) still
- Individual sites link between each other in ways similar to wikis
	- These can form [Webrings](/garden/webrings/index.md)

Building personal websites
- [IndieWeb](https://indieweb.org/) contains various resources
	- Their [building blocks](https://indieweb.org/Category:building-blocks) are standards people can use to help the small web connect with each other consistently
	- They discourage the use of site builders or templates that end up making sites look too homogenized
<span id="665b6ac0-d3ca-41d8-9534-929ac2907c2e">- Free hosting for static websites:</span>
	- [Neocities](https://neocities.org)
	- [Codeberg pages](https://codeberg.page) (and any other [pages-server](https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/pages-server) instance)
		- Like on [Incremental Social](https://incremental.social/pages)!
	- [Github pages](https://pages.github.com)
	- [Weird](/garden/weird/index.md) (in development)

Personal websites (or part of them) may be structured as [streams](https://indieweb.org/stream)
- [Microsub](https://indieweb.org/Microsub) is a proposed protocol to support this
	- That way, people could use microsub clients to subscribe to multiple streams and get them in one feed
	- Effectively a [Federated Social Media](/garden/fediverse/index.md) that works through personal websites
- Those stream may also announce their posts using [WebSub](https://indieweb.org/WebSub)
- This also allows your personal website to be the one source of truth for your posted content
	- Effectively solves the problems described in [Hey Creators, Please Make Firehoses!](https://jonbell.medium.com/hey-creators-please-make-firehoses-8d0c48c075e4)
- Multiple streams can be hosted by one site/person so people can subscribe to the kind of content they're interested in
- How viable would it be to include chat messages in a stream as well?
	- Perhaps with [Chat Glue](/garden/chat-glue/index.md) you could link to specific branches I chatted in

Personal websites (or part of them) may be structured as a [Digital Garden](/garden/digital-gardens/index.md) rather than a stream
- These sites may be useful to occasionally check up on rather than get notifications from on every post/change
	- Although [Garden-RSS](/garden/garden-rss/index.md) could allow those who want to receive notifications to do so

The small web is viable and can feasibly have a resurgence
- There are tools these days that make making websites incredibly easy
	- Back in the day geocities was pretty complicated but a lot of people managed to make pages there
	- Neocities has an extensive page on [Learn How to Make Websites!](https://neocities.org/tutorials)
- Hosting can be expensive, but static websites are cheap
	- There are plenty of free options out there for hosting static websites
		- Ideally you'd use some sort of system that is easily transferrable to other servers, and possibly even supports nomadic identities
		- [- Free hosting for static websites:](/garden/the-small-web/index.md#665b6ac0-d3ca-41d8-9534-929ac2907c2e)
- People are creative and love creating things