A quick roundup of a few posts from across my feeds about the last ever (🥺) XOXO Festival.

ArtLung | Post-XOXO Ramble on Websites and Freedom: Everybody Comes To Ricks

During XOXO, Andy Baio said “Every one of you should have a home on the web not controlled by a billionaire.” Cabel Sasser recommended that we all “put up the dang portfolio.” Molly White asked us to think back to “when was the first time you thought the web was magic?”

Molly White | XOXO and that feeling

I mentioned that I’ve been feeling this a lot over the last few years, even as I too am witnessing what many of us think about as “the web” rotting right in front of our eyes. Working outside of that rot pile, and perhaps motivated by it, there are so many people who are excited about the potential for a better web.

Grep Jason | XOXO

This conference festival experience was incredible. There were amazing talks and demonstrations from all over the Indieweb space. From the opening party and arcade to the tear-jerker of a closing speech, it was positive and pure emotional joy the whole way through.

Kottke | Thanks, XOXO

Thanks to Craig Mod for coming all the way from Japan to share the stage with me for a too-brief chat about membership programs. In the run-up to this, Craig and I had three extensive conversations about memberships, the open web, the value of writing your own software, Walt Disney’s corporate strategy chart, and many more things.

Reading these posts, I got a dose of second hand excitement about the open web and the energy to continue to build it into the thing we all want.