POSSE (publish on your site, syndicate elsewhere) is an indieweb publishing model. The idea is you publish content on your personal site and syndicate it elsewhere (usually, a content silo). This is also known as crossposting.
I appreciate a lot of people are seeking exposure and eyeballs are hard-earned in the age of the fast web. I understand the motivation behind POSSE. Nevertheless, there is a weird futility to it.
When I first joined a Mastodon instance I remember observing Cory Doctorow crossposting from Twitter. His presence on Mastodon was a hollow echo, all of his actual communication was done on Twitter. There was zero interaction on the Mastodon side as I recall. And I remember thinking… Mr. Doctorow, who are you talking to?
Now that I’m more active on NeoCities I’ve been thinking a lot about silos and when it makes sense to use them. I feel that the indieweb’s focus on syndication is misguided, but I don’t have a better alternative to suggest.
Maybe we must ask one question: who are you talking to?
Followed by… what is a link worth? If likes and thumbs are the currency of the fast web, links are the currency of the slow web. How do we get the most out of them?
I’m not sure what it is about Fridays and weird internet navel-gazing but there you go. Happy Friday!