This is a new blog. It is the third time I’ve “cleaned the slate”, abandoning prior websites simply because they were dated and never in the foreground of my attention. This time I’m making this blog my default browser’s homepage. In my more productive days, my browser’s default used to be iGoogle. iGoogle users may remember the super customizable landing page with their wonderful themes. My favorite was little “Zen Fox” playing a mandolin next to a pagoda and lake. The skyline would change colors to represent the time of the day; ending with stargazing. It suited my needs until it shutdown in 2013 only to be replaced for a short stint with Google+. Then Google+ died. But along with the shutdowns was a loss of all my automatically updated, convenient and compelling, RSS page feeds. All the newest titles of all the things I was interested in; gone. Bummer.
It’s been eight years since the demise of iGoogle and it’s been largely replaced with Facebook. Is that a good thing? Some may argue that it put us more in touch with family and current events. Some of the technology pundits I frequent are there; but many are not. Instead, the void has been filled with ads and worse; political ramblings and “news” that appear on my Facebook stream way more often than I’d like and it effects more than just my mood. It’s gotten in the way of friendships, my productivity, and my technology happy space. Time for a new default home page.
To replace Facebook entirely is not the goal. But I don’t need it as my browser’s default page. A search engine for a homepage is redundant; that’s already built-in as apart of the address bar. I won’t dive deeply into the darker side of a “free” communication platform (it’s not free -you are the product); that’s best explained by Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The notion that a mere three hundred “likes” allows Facebook to predict your every decision or arms third parties, such as Cambridge Analytica to change them is disturbing enough. It compelled me to try replacing Facebook with MeWe; a creation endorsed by the father of the Internet himself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He said that it would “bring the power of the Internet back to the people”. However, on my very first post comment on MeWe I was greeted with actual Neo-nazi links and content that wouldn’t survive legally in European countries, and even Facebook’s standards (turns out I wasn’t alone). Parlor; I won’t even go into. MeWe is a social network that claims it will never target you, you own the content you post, and privacy is a priority. As it happens, all sorts of unsavory folks like privacy too; for many nefarious reasons. My default browser page doesn’t need to be a social network. I’d just be happy if whatever I chose contributed to putting me back into my creative, technology happy space. Presenting me with new ideas and showing me links to what I find interesting all while being ad free is a bonus.
Imagine that; get unsponsored feeds you are actually interested in and presented the way you want; that can blow the doors off of Facebook’s stream.
Turn’s out that self-hosted WordPress has built in widgets for RSS feeds right out of the box. You can create an entire page dedicated to giving you delicious, not-promoted news, and posts from virtually everywhere across the web. If you’re willing to go the extra mile; you can install a WordPress plugin for RSS feeds that will dress up and present the content any way you want. You can find my unsolicited stream of interests on the “News” tab above or clicking here. Imagine that; get unsponsored feeds you are actually interested in and presented the way you want; that can blow the doors off of Facebook’s stream. Your WordPress site doesn’t even have to contain self-authored content; you’re not obligated to share an opinion unless you want to, and if you do, that’s even better.
There is an old saying in the WordPress community: Content is King. Jaron Lanier suggested personal capitalism is the cure to owning your own future; and when the master hippie of computer philosophy and grandfather of virtual reality says we got the whole “freedom to democratize the web” thing wrong; maybe we should listen. He’s encouraging everyone to go back, take personal control of, and charge for our data versus giving it away to some massive corporation. WordPress enables that. That’s not to say that all things WordPress are great; after all WordPress powers QAnon and that’s as big of problem as it is a solution. In a regrettable online argument I had (on Facebook no less), a self described “conservative” argued that the solution to all the crap conspiracy theory content we see online isn’t censorship; it’s more good content. Unfortunately the crap is over whelming and I’m not sure that any amount of roses could cover it or shield truly innocent eyes. But I do realize that he had one valid, although idealistic and subjective point: create more “good” content (I’m still working on the “good” part).
But what about pictures of friends and family? I have more disciplined friends that have jumped the Facebook mothership to land on their sister product: Instagram. Besides, I’m not abandoning Facebook; but if I don’t have to get sucked into the musings of American “free dumb” and for what passes as news; use more Instagram and limit it to exactly that; hobbies, friends, and family sans news and politics; then I’ll be fine. For everything else I can use WordPress. I can include what I consider “news” and (gasp) politics, lost creative venues, technology podcasts, even YouTube has RSS feeds, etc.; I can use what iGoogle abandoned and WordPress supplies; unadulterated RSS feeds without ads. These types of links are referred to as “organic”. No ads, or social media algorithms need apply. They are just links of your interests, updated, and without pretense. Plus, you get to own your mind again; that would make a good beginning for a new year.