[HN Gopher] Publish (On Your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere
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Publish (On Your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere
Author : 47thpresident
Score : 238 points
Date : 2026-01-02 19:48 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (indieweb.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (indieweb.org)
| doodlesdev wrote:
| This strategy is an alternative to PESOS (Publish Elsewhere,
| Syndicate (to your) Own Site) [0]. I really like this read on the
| indieweb website, it explains well why adopt this strategy for
| federation and emphasizes that "Friends are more important than
| federation", something a lot of nerds and hackers forget when
| defending their ideals.
|
| [0]: https://indieweb.org/PESOS
| kgwxd wrote:
| You can have both! POSSE to post multiple places. PESOS to pull
| in anything posted directly in other places, i.e. anything that
| didn't originate from a POSSE post.
| j45 wrote:
| POSSE offers a single source of truth the owner owns, vs PESOS
| which has multiple source of truth not owned by the owner if
| it's an external site.
| performative wrote:
| superficially it makes me very happy that both strategies make
| very cute acronyms
| fuzztester wrote:
| ha ha, nice. my cowboy (western movies) take on that: ride
| with your POSSE to make PESOS. :)
| theturtletalks wrote:
| POSSE can be applied to more than just social networks, it can be
| used to disrupt every marketplace!
|
| In fact, I'm building open source SaaS for every vertical and
| leveraging that to build an interoperable, decentralized
| marketplace.
|
| Social media is a marketplace as well. The good being sold is
| people's content and the cost you pay is with your attention. The
| marketplace's cut is ads and selling your data.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| If only HN had been doing this almost since it's inception. Oh
| wait.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| You can tell it's a good idea because Facebook and other "big
| enough to crush instead of cooperate" media sites down-rank you
| for doing it
| simonw wrote:
| I really like this philosophy. I've been using it for a couple of
| years now - everything goes on my personal site, then I post
| links on Mastodon, Bluesky and Twitter and sometimes (if I
| remember to do so) LinkedIn, plus copy and paste it all into a
| Substack email every week or so.
|
| I really need to automate it though - hard on Twitter and
| LinkedIn but still pretty easy for Bluesky and Mastodon.
| echelon wrote:
| If we had stuck with standard semantic web microformats,
| RSS/Atom syndication, FOAF-ish graphs, URIs for identity but
| also anonymous pubkey identities with reputation graphs - we
| could have built an entirely distributed social media graph
| that worked like email.
|
| But alas, Facebook pushed forward too fast to counter.
|
| There's still a chance, but the software needs to focus on
| simplicity and ease of use. Publishing blobs of signed content
| that can be added to anything - HTML pages, P2P protocols,
| embedded into emails and tweets - maybe we can hijack the
| current systems and have distributed identity and publishing
| take over.
| jamietanna wrote:
| Have you looked at https://posseparty.com/ as a possible
| option? Supports integrations with those platforms and more,
| and "all" it needs is an Atom feed!
| simonw wrote:
| Ooh I hadn't seen that. I'm still hung up on character limits
| - I want to make sure the summary I include isn't truncated
| with ... and is instead the right length for that particular
| platform.
| tolerance wrote:
| I know it's gotten some push back but to be honest I'm fond of
| the more manual approach that you take on HN.
|
| While I don't follow nor am I necessarily interested in
| everything that you cover, I do appreciate the presence of
| having something like a local "correspondent" around when you
| do appear to provide trails of supplementary commentary. The
| lengths that I see you go through to do all of this tastefully
| and transparently are not unnoticed.
| simonw wrote:
| I definitely won't be automating submission to places like
| HN.
|
| I figure if you chose to follow me on
| Bluesky/Twitter/Mastodon/LinkedIn there's no ethical issue at
| all with me automating the process of having my new blog
| entries show up in my feeds there, as opposed to copying-and-
| pasting the links by hand.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Ask HN: Is starting a personal blog still worth it in the age
| of AI?_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268055
|
| _A website to destroy all websites_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457784
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Awesome initiative. Will delve into this. It's how the web should
| be.
| vegabook wrote:
| This post like many recent ones like it, essentially wants the
| internet to go backwards to what it once was pre-LLMs [edit: and
| pre-concentration]. I'd like to suggest that you should follow
| through and go all the way to pre-internet itself, and rediscover
| handwriting, in-person local meeting groups, non-digital
| relationships, and using your hands not on a keyboard. Today I
| (with difficulty) left my macbook closed all day until this
| evening (and this comment). Small steps.
| dingnuts wrote:
| I understand this attitude but when I look back at my rural
| youth I just hear you telling me that I should have had no one
| to talk to at all about many things.
|
| Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater
| torh wrote:
| I read this as an ownership issue, where Meta owns your content
| as long as you post on Facebook or Instagram, and has nothing
| to do with LLMs.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Meta and all the other AI companies think they own it even
| when it's on your site.
| xenophonf wrote:
| Someone recommended Posse Party in a now deleted comment, but
| beware its (ambiguous and poorly written, if you ask me)
| noncommercial license:
|
| https://github.com/searlsco/posse_party/blob/main/LICENSE.tx...
| dieselgate wrote:
| It's almost like HN is a great platform for the POSSE model!
|
| Awesome share thanks for the link. Will send to a family member
| who is looking to gain viewership with their writing - they
| usually post on medium I think.
| Zaskoda wrote:
| We followed this practice at a Non-Profit I volunteered for some
| years ago. For us, it was motivated by a few reasons:
|
| - we trained the community around us to look to our website first
| for the most recent news and information
|
| - we did not want a social media platform to be able to cut us
| off from our community (on purpose or accident) by shuttering
| accounts or groups
|
| - we did not want to require our users have accounts on any 3rd
| party platforms in order to access our postings
|
| - but we still wanted to distribute our messaging across any
| platforms where large groups of our community members frequently
| engaged
|
| Another aspect of our process that was specific to our situation
| and outside of POSSE - we only posted one
| topic/issue/announcement per blog post. We had a news letter that
| would summarize each of these. Many organizations like ours would
| post summaries of many things to a single blog post, basically
| the same as the newsletter. However, this was cumbersome. For
| example, if someone in the community had a question, it was much
| clearer to link to a single post on our site that answered the
| question AND ONLY answered that question. It made for much better
| community engagement, better search engine indexing, cleaner
| content management, and just a better experience for everyone
| involved.
| RyanOD wrote:
| "we did not want to require our users have accounts on any 3rd
| party platforms in order to access our postings"
|
| 1000x yes to this! It can be really frustrating when a link
| takes me to FB, TW, IG, etc. - none of which I use.
| foxfired wrote:
| I've restarted blogging last year, going from a handful of blog
| post to, publishing consistently. All content gets published on
| my blog first. I've seen an ~8x increase of traffic. I was
| affected by zero-clicks from Google's AI overview, but the bulk
| of my traffic now comes from RSS readers.
|
| I published a write up just this morning:
| https://idiallo.com/blog/what-its-like-blogging-in-2025
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| Hell yeah! Just subscribed.
|
| I want to add analytics to my blog too, haven't had any on my
| sites for about a decade.
| acessoproibido wrote:
| Maybe a dumb question but why?
|
| Im a firm believer that data collected that doesnt have a
| clear action associated with it is meaningless - and i
| couldnt think of an action i would take if my traffic goes up
| or down on my personal blog - but tbh i mainly blog for
| myself not really to build an audience, so our objectives
| might differ
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| It is kind of fun even if it serves no purpose. Like those
| end of year recaps by various services, "oh shit I played
| that much Hades?"
| foxfired wrote:
| There are some actions you can take. For example, when my
| traffic plummeted, I saw through my logs that search
| engines were trying to access my search page with
| questionable queries. That's when I realized I became a
| spam vector. I gave a better rundown through the link I
| shared.
| foxfired wrote:
| Just an FYI, the data collected to make those conclusion was
| through the server log (Apache2 in my case). So if you run
| your own server or VPS, you already have this information.
| casualscience wrote:
| These are impressive metrics, are you able to make a living off
| of your 10M views?
|
| I'm planning to leave my job this year and focus on content,
| mostly have been considering YouTube, but if blogging can work
| too, might consider that as well
| merelysounds wrote:
| > Syndication can be done fully automatically by the server
|
| At the risk of stating the obvious: this can get tricky, many
| popular social media platforms restrict automated posting.
| Policies around automation and/or api usage can change often and
| may not even be fully public as some might overlap anti spam
| measures.
| acessoproibido wrote:
| Havent been able to figure this out for Instagram - also the
| only social media that is still relevant for me. (thankfully?)
| never got into twitter where it seems to be easy.
| theturtletalks wrote:
| How does Buffer[0] operate then? Even an open-source
| alternative to Buffer, Postiz[1], offers Instagram.
|
| 0. https://buffer.com
|
| 1. https://github.com/gitroomhq/postiz-app
| stogot wrote:
| Wasn't Buffer something else in the past? Did they pivot?
| merelysounds wrote:
| > How does Buffer operate then?
|
| Buffer documents a number of workflows and limitations in
| their FAQs.
|
| E.g. for a non-professional Instagram account, the user gets
| a notification to manually share a post via the Instagram
| app.
|
| > you can prepare your post in Buffer, receive a notification
| on your mobile device when it's time to post, then tap the
| notification and copy your post over to the social network to
| finish posting.
|
| source: https://support.buffer.com/article/658-using-
| notification-pu...
| theturtletalks wrote:
| Postiz docs show that users can create an app on Facebook
| and use that key and it will auto post.
|
| I guess using POSSE for Instagram forces you to either
| create a personal app on Facebook which is not easy or make
| your Instagram account a business account.
| acessoproibido wrote:
| I really want to implement this, but i havent been able to figure
| out how to do it for Instagram (the only social media that is
| really relevant in my friend circle) and whatsapp/signal groups
| other than doing it manually. If anyone has tips, especially for
| Insta let me know...
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| I don't do any syndication so my self-published site is simply a
| POS :'(
|
| Somewhat related, predictions for the future of the web by IWC
| contritbutors:
|
| https://vhbelvadi.com/indieweb-carnival-round-up-dec-2025
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I am not so sure. You need to speak in the native voice of each
| community. A LinkedIn post vs Tweet vs E-Mail are different. You
| need to get value from the network directly without expecting a
| click thru. A lot of engagement + authority happens via the
| network itself
|
| I think it's more accurate to see blogging as a distinct channel
| from other types of social media + content marketing
| susam wrote:
| Also, don't forget to set up an RSS or Atom feed for your
| website. Contrary to the recurring claim that RSS is dead, most
| of the traffic to my website still comes from RSS feeds, even in
| 2025 2026! In fact, one of my silly little games became
| moderately popular because someone found it in my RSS feed and
| shared it on HN. [1]
|
| From the referer (sic) data in my web server logs (which is not
| completely reliable but still offers some insight), the three
| largest sources of traffic to my website are:
|
| 1. RSS feeds - People using RSS aggregator services as well as
| local RSS reader tools.
|
| 2. Newsletters - I was surprised to discover just how many tech
| newsletters there are on the Web and how active their user bases
| are. Once in a while, a newsletter picks up one of my silly or
| quirky posts, which then brings a large number of visits from its
| followers.
|
| 3. Search engines - Traffic from Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing and
| similar search engines. This is usually for specific tools, games
| and HOWTO posts available on my website that some visitors tend
| to return to repeatedly.
|
| [1] https://susam.net/from-web-feed-to-186850-hits.html
| vasco wrote:
| The question is, do you have this traffic because of RSS client
| crawlers that pre-loaded the content or from real users. I'm
| not pro killing RSS by the way, but genuinely doubtful.
| susam wrote:
| > The question is, do you have this traffic because of RSS
| client crawlers that pre-loaded the content or from real
| users.
|
| I have never seen RSS clients or crawlers preload actual HTML
| pages. I've only seen them fetching the XML feed and present
| its contents to the users.
|
| When I talk about visitors arriving at my website from RSS
| feeds, I am not counting requests from feed aggregators or
| readers identified by their 'User-Agent' strings. Those are
| just software tools fetching the XML feed. I'm not talking
| about them. What I am referring to are visits to HTML pages
| on my website where the 'Referer' header indicates that the
| client came from an RSS aggregator service or feed reader.
|
| It is entirely possible that many more people read my posts
| directly in their feed readers without ever visiting my site,
| and I will never be aware of them, as it should be. For the
| subset of readers who do click through from their feed reader
| and land on my website, those visits are recorded in my web
| server logs. My conclusions are based on that data.
| ronbenton wrote:
| RSS is my preferred way to consume blog posts. I also find
| blogs that have an RSS feed to be more interested in actually
| writing interesting content rather than just trying to get
| views/advertise. I guess this makes sense--hard to monetize
| views through an RSS reader
| threetonesun wrote:
| It's funny back in the Google Reader days monetizing via RSS
| was quite common. You'd publish the truncated version to RSS
| and force someone to visit the site for the whole version,
| usually just in exchange for ad views. Honestly while it
| wasn't the greatest use of RSS it was better than most paid
| blogs today being ad-wall pop-up pay-gate nightmares of UX.
| ronbenton wrote:
| I still feel RSS was the pinnacle. Of course it's a personal
| preference, but I much prefer letting people pull my content than
| pushing it onto them.
| nesk_ wrote:
| Just discovered https://posseparty.com/ to ease your cross-
| posting.
| jamietanna wrote:
| I've been doing this for years with my site, and it's brought me
| a lot of joy that I can go back and search my site for various
| posts I've made over the last decade across all the platforms I
| use - I have a more high friction setup, but that's because of my
| own terrible choices
| nicbou wrote:
| This is my approach and I fully recommend it. My personal website
| is my canonical home address on the web. It has outlived a few
| platforms and many rounds of enshittification.
|
| A few caveats:
|
| - You will have different communities on each social network.
| Your personal website might be home to you, but to your users,
| it's not. You're just another creator on their platform of
| choice.
|
| - Each community has its own vibe, and commands slightly
| different messaging. This is partly due to the format each
| platform allows. Each post will create parallel but different
| conversations.
|
| - Dumping links is frowned upon. You should be a genuine
| participant in each community, even if you just repost the same
| stuff. Automation does not help much there.
|
| - RSS and newsletters are the only audiences that you control,
| and they're worth growing. Everywhere else, people who explicitly
| want to follow you might never see your updates.
|
| - You should own the domain you post to. This is your address on
| the internet, and it should stay yours
|
| - People do check your personal website. I was surprised to hear
| friends and acquaintances refer to things I post on my website.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| How do you fellow HN'ers separate their online with their
| corporate identity and day job?
|
| I cannot rid myself of the suspicion that your average boss is
| going to have a prying eye on your online activities and may even
| use them against you one way or another e.g. if you offer
| services/work on side projects that may in any way may compete w/
| your employer.
|
| Anyone got experience to share in that regard?
|
| Thinking about this famous precedent:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195#27425041
| sailorganymede wrote:
| IDK, your average boss is just a dude who has bills to pay and
| mouths to feed. They don't really care what happens as long as
| you're not doing something stupid, especially visibly and on
| their time.
| decryption wrote:
| My experience is that bosses read my blog, then when they or a
| fellow manager need to hire someone, have reached out to me
| asking me to apply. So it cuts both ways - maybe your shitty
| boss sees you blogging and sharing your experience, but a good
| boss will see that and go "I want this passionate and curious
| person to work for me".
| rectang wrote:
| I only work for small companies that don't have any business
| interest in areas where I want to maintain independent side
| projects.
|
| When a startup I was working at made a successful exit and got
| acquired my a major corporation that _did_ have business
| interests which overlapped with my side projects, I refused the
| bonus contract and froze my side project activity until leaving
| about a year later.
|
| Don't get cute. Avoid side projects that compete with your
| employer, and disclose unrelated side projects properly so that
| your employer is forced to acknowledge them. Do what it takes
| to avoid entanglement, making sacrifices if necessary.
| crashabr wrote:
| The concept seems trivial and widely used by many existing
| bloggers (and the default for most media outlets) so I feel like
| I'm missing something.
| hoherd wrote:
| One of the biggest steps down in Facebook history was their
| removal of RSS syndication. There was a time in the past when you
| could subscribe your Facebook account to external RSS feeds. The
| entries in those feeds would create new content on your "Facebook
| wall". This essentially let you use any third party that
| supported RSS to publish content into your Facebook feed.
|
| Facebook removed that feature. The effect of this was that people
| had to create content _within facebook_ instead of outside it.
| This reoriented the flow of content creation so that it must
| originate inside of Facebook, removing the ability to use FB as a
| passive consumer of content created in a workflow where the
| creators chose the entire flow.
|
| IMHO this is one of the biggest steps down ever in FB history. It
| was one of the biggest attacks on the open web, and I'm sad to
| say that it mostly worked, and the internet at large is worse as
| a result.
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