Next Generation Internet
I’m always here one day and never to be seen until many moons later.
And so, it’s been another half a year!
I feel like I update here on a half-year basis to be honest.
Like I would just suddenly get bursts of motivation to write about something.
Recently, I've been reading more long-form blogs and exploring the smaller web.
With what Google has been doing to Youtube, the amount of monetization in Reddit and Meta doing what they've always been doing, I found myself bored with what the big web has to offer.
Other than Reddit, I've stopped using social media on the most part. When I go back on them, they just feel so... lifeless. Sure, we see photos with funny captions showing what our friends have been up to, but it doesn't really make me *feel* like I'm getting to know them more.
As they say, social media only show the fun, and the best parts of people.
Just yesterday, I found a video talking about the Open Source read-it-later app called Omnivore. The video is this one here by A Better Computer:
Before this, I've never used an RSS reader or read blogged email newsletters. At first, I was just intrigued by how the app is completely free to use, and was looking for an app that can keep static webpages for future reading.
Note: Omnivore **cannot** save webpages statically (at least to my knowledge)
I installed it onto my iPad to see what it's like and saw some preloaded readings. One of those readings (The Secret Power of 'Read It Later' Apps) really got me thinking about how much time we waste everyday scrolling through images/videos which won't mean much to us, and won't fuel our brains with any substance.
The article suggested that read-it-later apps can help us replace our habit of using social media purposefully to distract ourselves (e.g. when we're in a train) with longer texts that might teach us something about the world, others or ourselves.
Although Omnivore has some bugs and design issues here and there, it was really ingenious of them to include that article -- I am sold! And so begins my search for reading material which ended with me trawling through means of finding non-SEO-abusing and more personal websites.
I found a thread on Reddit which kickstarted my journey. (Anyone else feel that they always have to append "reddit" to the end of their Google searches to filter out crappy AI-generated/listicle websites?)
I started my journey at blogroll.org and found a lot of interesting blogposts by a lot of interesting people. To be honest, I feel like I haven't been this excited about something in a while!
Next Generation Internet
I'd imagine that for everyone here on Neocities, this would be interesting to you too! (Unless I'm just very slow with my news haha) Afterall, I believe we're all here to relive that magic that we felt in the earlier webs.
I have one search engine you can try jumpstarting your journey with!
It is the Marginalia Search Engine . Not only is it a search engine for the smaller web, but they also have news on what is happening outside of the big G and links to other search engines which search through non-SEO-bloated sites.
I'm really enjoying this journey right now. Working on another personal blog project with my partner at the moment (my partner is an actual dev unlike me, so I'm sure the site would turn out quite incredible!), but for now, I'll use this space to be a big nerd.
