Creative Web Working Papers, No. 1
How can creative practitioners publish on the web today? Options, pitfalls, and trade-offs
Keywords: personal websites, digital sovereignty, platform dependency, content portability, POSSE, IndieWeb, web feeds, fediverse, creative practice, design research
Abstract
Most creative practitioners already publish somewhere online — usually on social media — and many do so with a growing unease: reach that quietly shrinks, rules that change without notice, the sense of building on ground they don't own. The alternatives are many, but so is the noise: every service insists it is the obvious choice. This working paper sets that aside and maps the landscape objectively: six ways to publish on the web today, each on its own terms — social media platforms among them, alongside federated social networks, newsletter platforms, portfolio and website builders, hosted CMS platforms, and self-hosted websites. Each carries genuine advantages and genuine pitfalls, from algorithmic reach and content moderation to export limits and account portability. Two throughlines recur: the value of a custom domain — cheap, and independent of any single option — and of POSSE, publishing on your own site first and syndicating to platforms after. The working paper closes with a recommendation, marked explicitly as the author's opinion rather than a technical fact: that a self-hosted site, paired with email and with platforms used for discovery rather than depended on, is the most durable combination available.
Versions
- Version 1.0 (PDF)2026-09-08First frozen version, DOI 10.34646/thn/ohmdok-5136
Living version
The text keeps developing at https://tilman.me/garden/Publishing+on+the+web. What stands there may already be ahead of the newest frozen version listed above.
Cite as
Zitzmann, T. (2026): How can creative practitioners publish on the web today? Options, pitfalls, and trade-offs. Version 1.0, 2026-09-08. Creative Web Working Papers, No. 1. Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm, Faculty of Design. https://tilman.me/pub/publishing-on-the-web/ DOI: https://doi.org/10.34646/thn/ohmdok-5136
CC BY 4.0 – DOI 10.34646/thn/ohmdok-5136 – tilman.zitzmann@th-nuernberg.de – All publications – tilman.me