POSSE, short for “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere”, as a term of use is now 11 years old³, which is surprising since when it was conceived, theIndieWeb community was in a period of very rapid innovation & iteration.
POSSE itself replaced a previous term, “POSE”, short for “Publish Once Syndicate Everywhere”, which had only been around a year or two at most (I’m still looking for the first use of the “POSE” abbreviation for that meaning). (View Highlight)
Since “publish once” was vague enough to include practices of publishing once on a social media silo, or in someone else’s garage⁵, we needed to clearly express the requirement to use your own site instead, first, as the source of your truth. Cross-posting to other sites & channels, is a second, optional step, ideally with a permalink linking back to your original post so viewers can easily discover and use your site. (View Highlight)
That distinction was enough for POSSE to express a strong creator-owned-first publishing model that resonated and grew. Every time a silo shutdown⁶ at the end of its incredible journey⁷, removing posts & permalinks from the web, POSSE was there for people who were tired of losing their data, permalinks, & profiles, and wanted an alternative. (View Highlight)
