I really enjoy the (maybe slow) return of the personal web. When I was growing up with the web, the idea that everybody could have their own website was awe inspiring. I’ve written about why, with the Muskification of Twitter into X, I’m excited that we’re veering back toward a world where your blog or your website is more important to you and your online social world than a Twitter or Facebook profile. I still think we’re returning to this, and Webmentions is another piece that may fill the sharing and quick, microblogging niche.
I heard about Webmentions from Bill Hunt, but it’s an open web standard to facilitate “cross-site conversations. When you link to a website, you can send it a Webmention to notify it. If it supports Webmentions, then that website may display your post as a comment, like, or other response, and presto, you’re having a conversation from one site to another!”
It’s kinda like Pingbacks or Trackbacks but relies on more standard HTTP requests and protocols. On WordPress, they can be richer comments than the sterile title, date, and excerpt included in the comments from a pingback.
I’m sympathetic to the idea that all these standards should merge into one. Part of what’s exciting to me right now is the controversy: That these conversations are happening at all and engaging wider audiences is a positive development for the open web. I think it’ll be a slow boat of progress but these conversations will gradually make it easier for more people to own their data, their content, and their web experience without being trapped inside a billionaire’s garden unless they really want to be.
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