It may sound bizarre, given how much so many use the web today, but it’s worth recognizing how many don’t think of the web at all anymore. It’s their social media app of choice, it’s Google, it’s some streaming services or YouTube.
The wider web, and the ability to participate in and build independent parts of it oneself, is an almost unheard of idea to many.
So trying to think of some tools/ways to ease them in, a few things come to mind.
Tools
- Publii for a basic WYSIWYG sitebuilding tool that can run on a local machine, offline.
- Zonelets an in-between blogging tool that also runs on a local machine, offline, but has one adjusting some pre-written html and javascript.
- Zoner, a static site generator to build Zonelets-style blogs without getting into the html/javascript, processes markdown files into html and produces a RSS feed if desired.
Info
- 32-bitcafe’s Create Your Own Website guide
- IndieWeb’s Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere guide
What other resources might you recommend?
On some further thought, if we wanted to go even smaller steps, it may be even better to encourage people to use web browsers more, instead of getting tied into single-purpose apps.
A lot of web browsers offer methods to sync one’s bookmarks and login info (for better or worse), and the portability of browser bookmarks compared to in-app favoriting/saving/bookmarking could be good ways to promote them.
Flipping it around, for those striking out into making their own sites, perhaps POSSE should be adjusted such that any syndication elsewhere is accompanied by reminders to sub to one’s RSS feed for a more direct and portable way to follow for further posts.