I have talked about the topic of owning your data in 2004, 2007, 2009, 2014, & 2017. In summary, I have promoted having a personal blog or website to initially publish any work, and then share it on various social media channels (controlled by someone else) as these come and go.
In 2014 I wrote a post sponsored by Cisco, on the ‘internet of everything’ (IoE) and owning our data. I said that the danger is that a few companies will have control of data factories and freelancers will become the product. As they say with social media, if you are not paying for the service, then you are the product. The IoE may increase the speed of automation, making more human jobs obsolete, as data become a capital resource. Will data factories become the new breed of middle-men while freelancers lose control? This could be a growing area of social and economic tension in the near future.
That future is here.
In a 2009 post on blogs as social media’s home base I created an image that is still pertinent today — contextualize what you see, create content, connect with others, and co-create with them.
Molly White has created [has referred to] a better acronym for owning your online data — POSSE = Post (on) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.
Rather than publishing a post onto someone else’s servers on Twitter or Mastodon or Bluesky or Threads or whichever microblogging service will inevitably come along next, the posts are published locally to a service you control. At that point, the rest is simple (if not easy): plugging in whichever social media sites you desire, and syndicating the posts through them either by copying the post there directly, or publishing a snippet with a link back to the original source.
I did not do this with Twitter and I don’t practice POSSE on Mastodon. Instead, I publish my Friday’s Finds to summarize what I found online that was interesting or informative.
Whatever your practice may be, owning your data and publishing on your own site are good long-term strategies. I started posting here in 2004.
2004! That’s like 10 years ago!
I’m pretty sure Molly White didn’t come up with that acronym. https://www.downes.ca/post/62753
(I didn’t come up with it either, for the record)
Point taken. Thanks for the clarification [from ten years ago!] Stephen. It is a good acronym!
Just yesterday I was in a Zoom breakout room and one of my colleagues mentioned having been “Downes’d” recently. It was well deserved I might add.
Once again Buckminster Fuller was prescient, Stephen has become a verb!
I have known Stephen for many years. We are almost the same age, so we may both be curmudgeons. Stephen used to live in the next town to me.
If I want to guarantee a long life to what I write I wouldn’t be so sure that this is the best path to follow.
If I get into an accident and tomorrow I am gone, my writings and digital creations will have definitely a longer life through the many platforms where I have shared or natively published them, but NOT on my site.
On my site they will disappear after just one year. As soon as my hosting and domain provider discover I am not paying their bills anymore.
Am I overlooking something?
I think that is what the “syndicate everywhere” part of POSSE is about, Robin. Nice to hear from you :)
Hey Harold, nice to get engaged with you again.
Sorry for the cold intervention, without any greetings.
I see now better with what you are suggesting.
I wasn’t familiar with the POSSE.
My point holds still some value.
That being however absurd it may sound that your content is generally much more secure and with a longer life on your backup/syndication venues than on your very own.
At least for the time being.
Good point, Robin. It’s optimal to diversify.