Options for setting up a links website?
December 4, 2022 3:52 PM Subscribe
I would like to have my own website where I can post short links to interesting articles I’ve read online, interesting podcast episodes, and so on. I should be able to add new links very quickly from the iOS share menu on iPad or iPhone, and they should be taggable (or somehow organisable) by topic (e.g. ‘movie’, ‘society’, ‘internet culture’, ‘cooking’). I’m not happy with any options I’ve found so far and wonder what else is possible?
I’m wanting something I can hook up to my domain name as part of my larger website. Ideally it should be almost as quick to update as sending a text or posting a tweet. Links need to be taggable with multiple tags per link. Alternatively links could be a added to a single page for each topic I’m interested in. An RSS feed would be nice. Ideally I want my data to be easily downloadable and not locked into a platform.
Options considered so far:
Wordpress.com: Feels bloated to use and slow to post to. None of the themes really work for this purpose (as far as I’ve seen). It’s too big-bloggy. Awkward data export process via XML. Costs money. Annoying cookie notices for visitors. I just dislike Wordpress and everything about it.
Twitter, mastodon: Very quick and easy to post to. Tagging is too limited. Not my own website - just some other platform. Data export is a pain.
Pocket app: Easy to save links to and tag, but again it’s a service not a real website.
Notion: Easy to set up a My Links database which is easy to update, and can output a website, and even on my own domain (£). Easy data export. But is someone else’s platform that may change in future in ways I dislike, or even shut down. Can’t really edit appearance. And database integration with the iOS share menu has gone wrong for my main links database so it’s busted now anyway.
A discord server: Very easy to post links in topic channels. But hard to re-discover things. Not a website - another locked-in platform.
Facebook: Quick and easy to throw up a link with a sentence or two of text. Locked in a platform. No use for organising. Difficult to get data out. Not a personal website.
Any suggestions would be welcome, or any thoughts in general on this idea.
I’m wanting something I can hook up to my domain name as part of my larger website. Ideally it should be almost as quick to update as sending a text or posting a tweet. Links need to be taggable with multiple tags per link. Alternatively links could be a added to a single page for each topic I’m interested in. An RSS feed would be nice. Ideally I want my data to be easily downloadable and not locked into a platform.
Options considered so far:
Wordpress.com: Feels bloated to use and slow to post to. None of the themes really work for this purpose (as far as I’ve seen). It’s too big-bloggy. Awkward data export process via XML. Costs money. Annoying cookie notices for visitors. I just dislike Wordpress and everything about it.
Twitter, mastodon: Very quick and easy to post to. Tagging is too limited. Not my own website - just some other platform. Data export is a pain.
Pocket app: Easy to save links to and tag, but again it’s a service not a real website.
Notion: Easy to set up a My Links database which is easy to update, and can output a website, and even on my own domain (£). Easy data export. But is someone else’s platform that may change in future in ways I dislike, or even shut down. Can’t really edit appearance. And database integration with the iOS share menu has gone wrong for my main links database so it’s busted now anyway.
A discord server: Very easy to post links in topic channels. But hard to re-discover things. Not a website - another locked-in platform.
Facebook: Quick and easy to throw up a link with a sentence or two of text. Locked in a platform. No use for organising. Difficult to get data out. Not a personal website.
Any suggestions would be welcome, or any thoughts in general on this idea.
this sounds exactly like tumblr, although I've never used the app for it. tags, rss feed, you can view all your posts in a tag by appending /tag/category to your site. (The linked tags on the post are global).
my profile links to my site which is all tumblr (I disabled the mobile view on my site, I really need to get a better theme that works for my site)
posted by noloveforned at 3:57 PM on December 4, 2022
my profile links to my site which is all tumblr (I disabled the mobile view on my site, I really need to get a better theme that works for my site)
posted by noloveforned at 3:57 PM on December 4, 2022
Sounds like any semi-modern bookmark manager would do most of this except for being on your own site. I don't know what options exist for self-hosted bookmarking but that's the search term I'd start with in your shoes rather than trying to turn Discord, Facebook, etc. into something they're not.
posted by Stacey at 4:21 PM on December 4, 2022
posted by Stacey at 4:21 PM on December 4, 2022
Best answer: I was gonna do this once with Pocket and an IFTTT with a blog, but like you, I couldn’t decide on a blog platform.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:28 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by kevinbelt at 4:28 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would recommend the https://pinboard.in/ bookmarking service. With Pinboard, you can easily bookmark any webpage with a single click, and you can use tags and notes to keep your bookmarks organized and easily searchable.
Pinboard has a clean and uncluttered interface, it's easy to use, and it doesn't have ads. In addition to its simple and intuitive design, Pinboard also offers a number of advanced features. For example, you can use Pinboard to automatically save links from your favorite RSS feeds, and you can use its API to integrate it with other tools and services. You can also publish your bookmarks as an RSS feed. See https://pinboard.in/faq/#viewing_bookmarks for more ways you can view, filter and distribute bookmarks.
posted by smyles at 6:41 PM on December 4, 2022
Pinboard has a clean and uncluttered interface, it's easy to use, and it doesn't have ads. In addition to its simple and intuitive design, Pinboard also offers a number of advanced features. For example, you can use Pinboard to automatically save links from your favorite RSS feeds, and you can use its API to integrate it with other tools and services. You can also publish your bookmarks as an RSS feed. See https://pinboard.in/faq/#viewing_bookmarks for more ways you can view, filter and distribute bookmarks.
posted by smyles at 6:41 PM on December 4, 2022
I like raindrop.io as a bookmarking service and you can turn one of the collections into a public page. You can organize the order of the links manually, set up highlights from the text, not just description. In addition, another note for Tumblr as well, and it's basically a blogging service, if you want to group links together into a themed post. Or else you can just do a link a post and tag as needed. Both is embeddable to your own website but Tumblr is a bit clunkier in just adding the links - the other thing I'm noticing with Tumblr is that if you intend to be a mobile user it wants to redirect you to their app, which I'm tolerating at this point.
Modern bookmarking like raindrop offers better workflow. With pinboard I still use a clunky jS bookmarklet, but these days I'm a heavy mobile user, not desktop, so this is my friction point.
posted by cendawanita at 7:06 PM on December 4, 2022
Modern bookmarking like raindrop offers better workflow. With pinboard I still use a clunky jS bookmarklet, but these days I'm a heavy mobile user, not desktop, so this is my friction point.
posted by cendawanita at 7:06 PM on December 4, 2022
Pinboard is apparently being slowly abandoned by its owner and raindrop.io is being used more.
You could def. configure Notion.so to do this, and I keep links I want to use on it for that.
But I would go with a Tumblr sideblog for this because that is definitely a typical use case for Tumblr. I think you can export, and you can do rss. Install xkit for easier desktop use, and most apps will share-to on tumblr. If you turn on the standalone website feature, you get your own tumblr url that you can apply templates to and set to be publically accessible.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:49 PM on December 4, 2022
You could def. configure Notion.so to do this, and I keep links I want to use on it for that.
But I would go with a Tumblr sideblog for this because that is definitely a typical use case for Tumblr. I think you can export, and you can do rss. Install xkit for easier desktop use, and most apps will share-to on tumblr. If you turn on the standalone website feature, you get your own tumblr url that you can apply templates to and set to be publically accessible.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:49 PM on December 4, 2022
I immediately thought of tumblr as well. Been years since i’ve used it but i recall vaguely being able to use one’s on domain with it as well.
posted by cgg at 9:13 PM on December 4, 2022
posted by cgg at 9:13 PM on December 4, 2022
You could take a look at Shaarli. I know it has an app for Android, but I don't know about iOS.
https://shaarli.readthedocs.io/en/master/
posted by letraset at 7:14 AM on December 7, 2022
https://shaarli.readthedocs.io/en/master/
posted by letraset at 7:14 AM on December 7, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:56 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]