How do you all find cool blogs, video, and people to follow on the small web? That feels like the main selling point of big platforms like youtube and substack, there's a lot of stuff in one place. And search engines barely seem to index small blogs. I'd love to know about more small web alternatives.
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@cameron At the end of this post I list some ways. https://sightlessscribbles.com/posts/20250603/#some-places-to-get-started
@cameron scrolling fedi, usually
I followed a couple people who like things I like, and over time they've boosted so many cool things into my timeline, frequently resulting in me following more cool people or useful hashtags
Nowadays, I end up finding all sorts of cool things on my fedi timeline, including the "small web" more than any other source ever does
follow lots of people and boost?
@cameron Apart from following links by other people, Marginalia search is also useful. It also has an explore page which will give you some random screenshots – click one that seems interesting and follow the links... https://marginalia-search.com/explore
@cameron Iteratively. Find one cool person. Find their links to their cool friends. Repeat until you have too much to read.
This is why it’s so important to link to people you find cool. You can be a silo and expect algorithms to connect you with people, or you can actively participate in the web. Like, all these links *are* a social network. They’re just fully manual.
Personally, I don’t like the term “small web”. It’s just the web! It’s always been here! It’s always worked this way! We should be using a neologism for Meta et al.
@bytex64
I agree, that's a good perspective.
@cameron i like https://ooh.directory/ for browsing for cool stuff and https://marginalia-search.com/ for searching the small web
@sus
Thank you! Marginalia Search looks really helpful!
@cameron I like using https://searchmysite.net/ . That *only* indexes small blogs!
Or Wikipedia often has good links at the bottom of their articles.
@cameron I start with following people I know and look who they are following. I also like reading newsletters. I had a handful of newsletters that were recommended to me and through them I found new interesting stuff. It‘s a journey of discovery but led by myself not by a platform. I like the way it feels and the slower speed. It protects me from getting overwhelmed by masses of content. Maybe that helps?
@nanoparsec
Yes! That's sounds like a soothing and enjoyable approach.
@cameron Lots of great reccomends already. On a different note, I like to look through other folks blogrolls. I'll click through and see if any have posts in my interests.
I wish more of them would offer a OPML to download and not just a list of sites on a webpage. When I find one that has an OPML I'll add it to my RSS reader in its own folder and just import all of them blindly. Then I'll remove any I don't like. Or if the whole list isn't for me I'll just delete the folder from my reader.
@cinimodev
For sure! I wish more people did blogrolls, especially with the OPML!
@cameron word of mouth and occasionally marginalia.
@cameron hi! Well, one is hashtags, like I just saw this on- SmallWeb is awesome!
There are spots like https://smallweb.cc and Fred Rocha has some cool info at https://fredrocha.net/2025/05/21/small-web-is-beautiful.
And then there's https://indieweb.org, and Andrew Doran has a good writeup at https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2025/12/20/tools-for-discovering-the-indieweb. Also, webrings like https://xn--sr8hvo.ws and https://neocities.org and https://32bit.cafe both have great resources and communities for blogs and such.
When I first started here a couple years back I was able to find maybe 10-30 people I knew from Twitter when I quit, but then it was hashtags. Following them. Liking, following, commenting - any kind of interaction adds to the awesome atmosphere here. And most people are so cool and friendly! I mean.. suggestions, too. @stefan does some amazing stuff here, bots and https://jointhefediverse.net, which has a TON of fedi resources, for Peertube, Lemmy, and everything else, etc.
@jake4480 @cameron @stefan Adding a few more to the pile:
https://powrss.com @powRSS
https://blogroll.org
https://indieblog.page @indieblog (with a really useful Random feature)
https://personalsit.es
https://minifeed.net
@balint @jake4480 @stefan @powRSS @indieblog
Oh wow, so many good things to check out! Thank you!
@balint Those are great!
These might also be interesting then:
https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/resources-for-keeping-the-web-free-open-and-poetic/#get-inspired
@jake4480 Thank you for the shout-out!
@cameron Here are some tools and resources that are a bit more Mastodon-centric, but I think might be useful:
https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/how-to-join-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/#who-to-follow
And some music-related recommendations as well: https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/115736504631923641
Hope this helps!
@jake4480
Thank you for all those great ideas! That's awesome.
@cameron heck yeah! I like to keep track of good spots I see, I have a little directory of my own over at neocities (https://oldtimeywebportal.neocities.org) that I should add some of this info to, in some fashion.. I also have 2 blogs on WordPress 😂 (main one in my bio, and one on cartoons) and a blog on Bear.. I like to try things. All decent services.
@jake4480
Agreed, it's fun! I have tried so many different services and softwares. It's hard to stop fiddling and just write a blog in one place, sometimes. Making a little directory is a great idea, I may add one my blog too, if I get my thoughts all organized.