As I was starting to write the last post, WP Tavern published this piece about Manton Reece’s successful Kickstarter campaign to support both his new book, Indie Microblogging, and its associated micro.blog service. I thought this was pretty cool at first, but looking deeper, I’m even more excited. You see, Manton Reece thinks a lot about the web, and along the same lines as I do. He also posted comments on the news of Medium’s economic troubles. The money quote will sound familiar if you read my post:
The message is clear. The only web site that you can trust to last and have your interests at heart is the web site with your name on it.
Reece’s plan is to help get the web back to its basic principles, allowing anyone to claim a space of their own to communicate with the rest of the world, find an audience, or a tribe. Depending on their motivations, they can be laid-back conversationalists, or folks who want to band together to change the world.
Today, most online conversations take place on Twitter and Facebook, properties of corporations big and small, funded (as Ev Williams of Medium noted yesterday) by other corporations using advertising to achieve their own ends. Like the Web luminaries that organized last year’s Decentralized Web Summit, Reece thinks we need to get back to the Web as the most important communications tool ordinary people have ever had access to.
A quick summary of the promise of Reece’s idea: The Micro.blog project focuses on giving people ownership of the kind of messages now seen on Twitter. It doesn’t seek to replace Twitter, as it allows posting to both your website and other sites. At the same time, if Twitter filed for bankruptcy tomorrow (a realistic possibility, judging from the occasional gloomy forecast of the tech press), you’d still have your tweets.
I really look forward to seeing the results, and learn more about this project. Check out the links, and consider supporting the Kickstarter to get your own e-book.