Been a while since I wrote any kind of...human, real update. I wanted to share what I've been cooking up.

I've been head down working on The Index, my indie news project that I'm really excited about, and Westenberg, my solo-founder publication. I gotta say, I'm exhausted. The last few months have been interesting, let me put it that way.

Shutting down my PR/marketing firm to go back to indie publishing has meant a drop in income of around 90%. The bills are getting paid, and I'm fortunate to have a partner who works their ass off to do this with me. None of this would be possible without them. But the stress is definitely real.

I'm not good at pretending I'm "crushing" it. That shit is for influencers.

I will say, as tired as I am, as much of a struggle as indie publishing actually is - I'm happy. I'm on the right track. I love what I'm doing.

I wanted to jot down a few notes on how The Index is shaping up...

Imagine a news feed that's not trapped in a walled garden. No algorithmic manipulation, no corporate overlords – just pure, social-first news that flows freely across the internet. That's The Index in a nutshell.

The core of it all is the web feed, which I'm designing to be deeply integrated with the fediverse and ActivityPub. If those terms are new to you, think of it as making news as easy to share and discuss as social media posts, but without all the platform lock-in we've gotten used to.

I'm building this on Micro.blog as the backend – it gives me a solid foundation for what I'm trying to achieve. It's like starting with a well-built house and then adding your own custom additions, rather than trying to build everything from scratch.

We've all seen how traditional news delivery has changed (and not always for the better) in the social media age. The Index is my attempt at finding a middle ground – keeping the social, sharing aspect we all love while making it more open, more genuine, and more connected to how the internet was meant to work.

Right now, I'm focused on getting the web feed just right. It's the foundation everything else will build on, so it needs to be solid. There's still plenty to figure out, but I'm enjoying the process of building something that feels different from the usual news experience.

You can check it out here: https://theindex.media/

I'll keep you posted as things develop. As always, feedback and thoughts are welcome – this is as much about building a community as it is about building a platform.