EchoFeed is Shutting Down
Earlier this week, I read Robb’s post explaining that he was shutting down EchoFeed. Now, before I go any further into this post, it needs to be said that I fully support Robb and his decision to do so. He provided an amazing service and I am thankful to have used it while it lasted. If it’s not something he enjoys doing, or is no longer worth the growing hassle, I’m glad he is able to move on, and do so gracefully.
Background
So, why does this matter to me? In short, EchoFeed was the core of the POSSE strategy for this website. POSSE is a philosophy on the IndieWeb encouraging people to own their content, by posting to personal websites then having that syndicate out to the greater web. My only real social media presence anymore is Mastodon, and so last year, I set up “mumbles” on my site. These are short little posts (often referred to as notes on the IndieWeb), similar to what was historically found on sites like twitter.
EchoFeed handled this for me. My mumbles post to their own RSS feed, after which EchoFeed was able to slurp them up, and cross-post to my Mastodon account. Without the service, they no longer auto-post to my account.
What’s Next?
When I first heard the news, I started brainstorming plans for what to do. “There must be other services I could use? Maybe I could even self-host on my web server? In all honesty, my use is extremely minimal… I could probably just add it into the CI/CD system, or even as a script I kick off manually when I publish a mumble?”
These solutions could all work. But do I need them to? My use of Mastodon over the years has been lackluster at best. On top of that, the last several cross-posted mumbles have had zero interaction. I think I’ve gotten more emails from people responding to my posts or website in general, than any comments or even ‘boosts’/‘favorites’. And honestly, I think I like it that way.
Conclusion
So, for now I think I’ll just leave things as is. I’ll still fire off and publish short posts as mumbles (something I’ve been wanting and doing a bit more often), but they won’t automatically cross-post to Mastodon. If I decide I need or want it in the future, I’ll implement something. Or, maybe I’ll add a more traditional comment system like Pure Comments for engagement. We’ll see.
For now, I’m just going to keep it simple, because that’s all I need.