The Small Web

What is the small web?

  • The small web refers to an ongoing movement to return to the form of the web before consolidated platforms really took over, platforms such as Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and others.
  • The small web is known by other names: Old Web, Indie Web, Wonder Web, Wild Web, Retro Web, Web Revival, Personal Web, Yesterweb, Lofi Web, Fun Web, Directory Web, Tilde Web, Low-tech Web, Lofi Web, Open Web, Slow Web, Neocities Web, etc.
  • The IndieWeb is a related movement and is a “community of people building software to enable personal independently hosted websites to maintain their social data on their own”. [Wikipedia] The IndieWeb has 10 core principles:
    • Own your data.
    • Use & publish visible data for humans first, machines second.
    • Make what you need.
    • Use what you make.
    • Document your stuff.
    • Open source your stuff.
    • UX and design is more important than protocols, formats, data models, schema etc.
    • Modularity.
    • Longevity.
    • Plurality.
    • And, an informal eleventh: Above all, Have fun.
  • The small web is the Shire of the Internet
  • In summary, be human, stay human.

Small Web Primers

Explore The Small Web

  • Wiby [Search Engine] – Small web search engine (Try the Surprise Me link)
  • Marginalia [Search Engine] – Prioritizes non-commercial, more small-web-friendly websites
  • Kagi Small Web Random Website Navigator – Easy random small web navigator, including topics
  • Neocities Random Browser – A random selection of small web sites hosted by Neocities who have near 2 million users
  • Nekoweb Explore – Search sites hosted on Nekoweb, a free web hosting service for old web and personal websites
  • 32-Bit Cafe [Community]
  • 1MB Club [Page] – “1MB Club is a growing collection of performance-focused web pages weighing less than 1 megabyte.”
  • 512KB Club [Page] – “The 512KB Club is a collection of performance-focused web pages from across the Internet.”
  • 256KB Club [Page] – “The 250KB Club is a collection of web pages that share certain values, especially a focus on performance, efficiency, accessibility and sustainability.”
  • Hacker News – Popular tech news website embodying small web ideals

Daily Dose of the Small Web

These sites show you a random site from the small web. Along with my other regular sites, I open these as a bookmark folder to start my day for a few pleasant surprises from the small web.

Small Web Alternatives

My Contributions to the Small Web

  • RedRival Small Web Hosting – Free web hosting returns from a name that started in the 90s
  • Simwiki.net – A community for all things simulation, including driving sims, flying sims, city sims, rail sims, and more.
  • WeeWeb.net (Coming Soon) – A network of small web sites fulfilling classic small web roles such as a small web directory, web hosting, email, forums, counters, trackers, banner exchanges, note taking, timers/pomodoro, and more.

My Definition of the Small Web

  • My small web is a pretty open concept
  • Individuals and businesses can be on the small web
  • Basic HTML/CSS/JS websites are ideal but sites using advanced client-side or server-side frameworks are not automatically disqualified. For example, I think my blog, Selah.ca, counts as small web even though it’s running WordPress. I think Wikis count as small web, too. I think the idea is to be real, honest, and human.
  • Quirky late 90s / early 00s website design is fun but not necessary to be considered small web
  • The principles of the IndieWeb are valuable but not required to count as small web
  • Small size probably matters: Small to medium size businesses are probably small web but if you’re the size of Google or Facebook, chances are you don’t embody the ideals of the small web so you’re out.

More from the Small Web

  • The Seven Wonders of the Web [Post] – “These lists encompass true wonders of the web, sites that defy expectations, sites you wouldn’t expect to find providing the value that they do.”

Getting Started on the Small Web

The Internet Used to Be a Place

  • A video thumbnail caught my eye one day and its thumbnail said this: the internet lived in a room
  • The video was The Internet Used to Be a Place
  • The idea caught me more than the video, itself, although the video is worth a watch too
  • I grew up in the time before smartphones when the Internet did ‘live in a room’, so to speak, and those were better, healthier times, not just for me but everybody, since the advent of the smartphone and especially infinite scroll social media apps had not yet happened
  • It got me thinking about how to begin moving the addictive part of the Internet back into a room and onto a computer that I wouldn’t always have with me and so help me break bad habits

Why Gen Z Misses a Time They Never Knew

  • This is an important video on a related concept that covers Gen Z’s longing for something more tactile than a screen, more physical than an avatar, and more human than an image.

Gen z, anemoia, and lost identity

  • Anemoia is not just nostalgia, it’s not really about the past, it’s about the present being a promised future that never happened and how that interrupts identity discovery and formation.
  • Fascinating that the issue of our day is identity. This helps explain much about the vortex of unending identities that the West is currently pursuing instead of unity and shared culture.
  • The comments section is great. Many commenters suggesting reversing trend, getting rid of smart devices, getting rid of social media, and putting the internet back on a desktop computer in a room that you can’t carry with you 24/7. I fully support that and I recognize that my recent creative ideas have been around this idea of eventually ditching smart devices.
  • I don’t think anemoia is just a Gen Z / Gen Alpha phenomenon. I’m middle-aged and recognize that there is a difference in the world from before the internet and after the internet, before social media and after social media, and how modern digital, virtualized life plays into personhood and being and identity.