Internet layers: social media, the open web, RSS and email

IndieWeb

The so-called IndieWeb is a community and a set of open standards that let personal websites talk to each other directly, with no platform in between. This site has them built in:

• Webmention, a mailbox between websites: when another site links to mine, it can knock on my mailbox; when I feature someone in the Human filter, my site knocks on theirs.
• h-card, a machine-readable card on the homepage that says who I am.
• h-entry, machine-readable articles, so another site can show a mention of my text with the author and the date.
• h-feed and u-bookmark-of in the Human filter, so a site I link to learns that I bookmarked it, and can show the note I wrote about it instead of a bare mention.
• rel="me", identity proofs that tie my profiles to this domain; with a service such as IndieLogin they also let me sign in to IndieWeb sites with my own domain instead of a platform account.
• IndieAuth, my own sign-in server, so that proving I am me runs through this domain rather than through an account somebody else controls.

The descent

• Now, what I am doing right now
• Manifesto, why I do all this

Layer 2 · The cozy web

This layer is the so-called cozy web. It is called cozy because it feels like a small, familiar room rather than a public square: there is a gate, you either walk in by your own decision or somebody lets you in, and what happens inside is not indexed by search engines.

• Living room, private room, invitation only
• Chat groups from secondary school, from university, and groups of friends from my home town

Layer 3 · The dark web

The hidden part of the internet, one layer below the cozy web, reachable through onion routers such as Tor. You will not find me here.

Off the internet · Offline

This one is not a layer of the internet. Most of what I publish starts in this place.