Introducing PUSSY
A calmer, more intentional way to publish everywhere.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of the open web. About ownership. About community. About whether we’ve finally reached the point where people can publish something without first learning six acronyms.
I think we need a seventh.
Today, I’m excited to introduce PUSSY: Publish on Ur Site, Syndicate Yonder.
The spelling of “Ur” is intentional. We don’t believe the future of independent publishing should be dictated by a centralized dictionary.
Why PUSSY?
For years, POSSE has encouraged people to publish on their own sites and syndicate elsewhere. It’s a good idea, but “elsewhere” has always felt a little impersonal to me.
“Yonder” feels warmer. More human. Like somewhere you might walk to, rather than somewhere you need to refresh an expired access token.
PUSSY builds on that foundation with a simple philosophy: your website should be your home, and everything else should be a place you reluctantly visit because all your friends are there.
You write a post. We send it to several other services. You then visit those services individually to see whether anyone liked it.
This isn’t about chasing engagement. It’s about checking on the health of the open web approximately every eight minutes.
Your content belongs to you
I’ve always believed that nobody should stand between you and your words.
That’s why PUSSY puts everything in one convenient dashboard that I designed and can rearrange whenever something starts to feel wrong to me.
You choose what to publish. You choose where to publish it. You choose from the options I’ve decided are consistent with choosing.
Of course, you can export your content at any time. I think that’s important. I also think it’s important that leaving requires just enough familiarity with front matter to make staying feel like a considered decision.
Independence shouldn’t mean relying on a giant corporation.
It should mean relying on a small company whose founder you can disappoint personally.
Built for the open web
PUSSY embraces open standards. RSS. Webmentions. Whatever we eventually agree a reply is.
There are no proprietary barriers, except for a few implementation details that would take too long to explain in this announcement.
Developers are welcome to build their own integrations. The documentation is spread naturally across the help site, three blog posts, and a reply I made to someone in February. We think discovering it should feel like exploring a neighborhood.
Support for additional services will arrive as their APIs become available and my feelings about them evolve.
A note about the name
A few people who saw an early preview suggested that the acronym might distract from the underlying idea.
I hear that feedback.
But I also think the web has become a place where we’re too quick to dismiss something simply because it makes a conference organizer uncomfortable.
We considered alternatives. None of them felt quite as personal.
For now, I’d like to keep the conversation focused on the technology. I’ve closed replies to this post to help with that.
Getting started
PUSSY will be included with our new Independence plan, billed monthly.
Existing users don’t need to do anything. Your current cross-posting settings will continue to work exactly as before, which I think demonstrates just how thoughtfully we’ve approached this transition.
The open web doesn’t need another platform.
It needs a home.
Preferably one I host.
PUSSY. Your words. Your rules. My implementation.