Barnacles of data
February 6, 2023
I was poking around Dave Rupert’s site a few weeks ago (like you do 💁) and ran across his /likes page:
My favorite RSS reader, FeedBin, graciously spits out a reverse chronological list of articles I’ve faved. Come back and visit anytime or… better yet… subscribe in your feed reader!
As an old-school RSS aficionado and fellow Feedbin fan, I love the idea of people making feeds of their favorite links available to everyone. It reminds me of the sharing feature from the late-great Google Reader, but in a way that doesn’t rely on everyone using the same app or service.
The slug itself brings to mind other pages people in our little corner of the internet have added to their sites over the years to publish somewhat-structured data at well-known addresses:
/uses— favorite software, hardware, etc. (a bit like a self-hosted Uses This)/now— what's going on in a person's life? (See nownownow.com)/links— link-in-bio style pages that seem to have proliferated since Twitter changed hands
The more I encounter these single-serving pages with bits and bobs of information, dangling (but also thriving!) from a domain like barnacles on a ship, the more I appreciate the near-infinite possibility afforded by a personal site, and the rich, hospitable environment it provides for ideas to grow and spread.
(I borrowed a page from Dave’s book site and added a little Likes feed of my own 🌟)