N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM

Using the N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM, you can create a personal alternative to social media feeds. You decide for yourself which people, projects and websites to follow. No account, no advertising, no ranking, no manipulative algorithms, no tracking.

There are two things you can do here: read, by composing your own feed from anyone you choose, and publish, by setting up your own website as a source others can follow. Both together, across many websites, form the social medium.

Set up your own publisher. You do not have to read only. With N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM you can run your own small social medium from your own website: publish texts, images and video, offer an RSS feed so others can follow you, let readers subscribe by email, keep comments and archive on your own server, and join the directory so people can find you. N55 NEWS is simply our own node in this network, one example among many. The whole idea is described in the Manual for N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM.

The software is a small set of readable files that runs on ordinary web hosting. It is still work in progress: we are preparing it for release, and it will soon be available here to download and use freely, under an open licence. To be told when it is ready, write to n55@n55.dk.

Simply paste the URL of an RSS feed below, and it will automatically be added to your personal news feed. Add as many as you like to create your own collection of news sources. If you do not know the feed address, you can try pasting the website address instead, and the reader will search for the site's feed. This works on many websites, but not all.

The N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM stores your feed list privately in your browser. Nothing is sent to any server. Remember to export your feed list regularly to keep a backup.

We encourage everyone to help reclaim the internet. One way is to build your own relevant news feed instead of relying on algorithm-driven platforms. Another is to publish your own website or blog and offer an RSS feed, making your work freely available through an open standard rather than locking it inside proprietary social media.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an open standard that has existed for decades but has recently gained renewed relevance. The word "syndication" simply means distributing content from one source to many subscribers. As social media platforms increasingly rely on algorithms and tracking, RSS offers a simple alternative. You subscribe directly to the people, projects and websites you choose and receive new posts in chronological order.

Many websites still offer RSS feeds, including blogs, newspapers, magazines, podcasts, museums, universities and open source projects. If you cannot find a feed, try searching for the website name together with "RSS", or look for links ending in .xml, /feed or /rss. Browser extensions can also detect RSS feeds automatically.

Many AI assistants can also help you discover RSS feeds. Simply ask for the RSS feed of a particular website, newspaper, blog, organisation, company or person you would like to follow.

Some sources publish only by email, with no feed to follow. You can still bring them in by setting up a NEWSLETTER READER, a small converter that turns an email newsletter into an RSS feed. Make one email address used only for subscriptions, subscribe it to the newsletters you want, and point the NEWSLETTER READER at that mailbox. Each newsletter then appears here beside your other feeds. The Manual describes the steps.

The DIRECTORY below is another way to discover feeds. It is a voluntary list of independent publishers, and every listed publisher can be added to your reader with a single click. Anyone with a website and a working RSS feed can join: the feed is verified automatically, and no one approves or rejects applicants. The directory itself is an ordinary file that anyone can host, and the reader can read any directory, so no single list is central.

You do not have to use the N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM. RSS is an open standard, and there are many excellent RSS readers available. Your subscriptions can easily be moved from one reader to another at any time. Copyable links to N55's own feeds are listed on our RSS page.

+Is there anything new in N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM?

No. Every part of it has existed for decades: HTML, RSS, hyperlinks, email. Nothing is invented. It only combines open standards that were always there, and that the social media platforms taught us to forget. The technology for free, independent communication is already here, available to everyone and free to use: nothing has to be invented, bought or waited for. What has been missing is not the technology but the decision to use it. What we have done is combine these existing technologies into one coherent system, so that using them is simple. The novelty is the absence of novelty.

+What technologies does it use?

Only open standards that are documented and widely used: HTML for structure, PHP to generate pages, JavaScript for interaction, RSS to distribute publications, hyperlinks to connect them, and email for direct messages. There is no database and no framework. The whole system is a small number of plain, readable files, and any one part can be replaced without changing the rest.

+Why is it different from ordinary social media?

On a platform, one company owns the publishing, the archive, the feed, the audience and the rules. Here those are separated and returned to the people using them. You publish on your own website, you read in your own reader, and no company sits in the middle deciding what you see or selling your attention. The order is simply chronological. You are not the product.

+Can I still use Facebook and Instagram?

Yes. The purpose is not to leave the platforms but to stop depending on them. Publish on your own website first, then use the platforms as noticeboards that point back to it. They become one way people discover your work, not the only place it exists.

+Why not just use Mastodon, Pixelfed or the Fediverse?

Those are genuinely better than the big platforms, and we are not against them. The difference is how far ownership goes. Mastodon and Pixelfed belong to the Fediverse: many independent servers that talk to each other over an open protocol (ActivityPub). That removes the monopoly, no single company owns the network, but you still publish onto someone else's server, called an instance, and you depend on that instance's administrator, uptime, moderation and continued existence. If the instance closes, your posts and followers are disrupted. N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM takes ownership one step further: your publications live on your own website, under your own domain name, as plain files you control, and RSS and hyperlinks connect them. You are not joining a network, you are the source. The two approaches are compatible rather than rivals: a Mastodon account makes a perfectly good noticeboard, and you can even offer an RSS feed of it. The point is only that the original and the archive should not depend on any server but your own, not even a friendly, federated one.

+What about WordPress? It is open source too.

WordPress is open source and can be self-hosted, which already puts it far ahead of a closed platform, and for many people it is a reasonable choice. But in practice it drifts back toward the dependencies it was meant to avoid. A typical WordPress site runs a database (MySQL or MariaDB) and PHP on a web server such as Apache or Nginx, plus a theme and often dozens of plugins, each needing regular updates: skip them and you accumulate security holes, apply them and something breaks. Much of the ecosystem is commercial, with proprietary premium themes and page builders such as Elementor or Divi that wrap your content in their own shortcodes and markup, so the pages only work inside that builder. That is vendor lock-in: your content is no longer really portable. N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM is the opposite by design: a handful of small, readable files, no database, no plugin ecosystem, no build step, no admin treadmill. It does less, and that is the point, less to update, less to break, less to depend on, and your content stays as plain HTML and RSS that you can move anywhere. If you already run WordPress you do not have to leave it: just make sure it exposes a clean RSS feed and that the original of your work lives somewhere you control.

+How do I set it up myself?

You need ordinary web hosting with PHP, the kind most hosting has had for fifteen years. You copy a small set of readable files to your server, set a password, and open the admin page. There is no database to configure and no account to create anywhere. The manual describes each step. The software is still being prepared for release; write to n55@n55.dk to be told when it is ready.

+Do I need to know how to program?

To read, no: you only paste the addresses of feeds you want to follow. To publish, you need to be able to upload files to a web server, which most hosting makes easy, but you do not need to program. And if you do want to change something, the files are short and readable.

+What does it cost?

The software is free. You pay only for ordinary web hosting, as you would for any website, often a few euros a month. N55 sells nothing and charges nothing. There is no subscription, because a subscription would be exactly the kind of dependency the system exists to avoid.

+Are people not too lazy to install it themselves?

Most people will not, and that is fine. A social medium does not need everyone. It needs enough publishers offering feeds that following them becomes worthwhile, and anyone can follow without installing anything. Reading is easy; publishing is a choice. Even a small number of independent publishers is already a network.

+Will it still work in ten years?

Probably better than most software written today. It depends only on technologies that have already lasted decades, and on no company's continued goodwill. There is nothing to expire: no subscription, no plugin ecosystem, no API that can be switched off. A file that works today will work in ten years, because the standards underneath it do not change.

+What happens to my data?

The reader stores your feed list only in your own browser; nothing is sent to any server. If you run your own publisher, your posts, archive and subscribers all stay on your own hosting. There are no third parties, no cookies for visitors, and no personal data collected about readers.

+Can I leave and take everything with me?

Yes, at any time. Your subscriptions can be exported and opened in any other RSS reader. Your publications are ordinary files you can move to any server. Nothing is locked in, which is the whole point.

+Who owns it?

No one owns the system. The software is free to copy, modify and share under an open licence. You own your own installation: your posts, your archive, your subscribers, your statistics, all on your own server. N55 owns nothing here except its own node, n55.dk, just as everyone owns theirs.

Glossary

Independent publishers who have chosen to be listed. Add any of them to your reader with one click.

Join the directory
Anyone with a website and an RSS feed can join. The feed is checked automatically before you are listed.

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Directory source (any directory file can be used):

Public RSS feeds we find worth following. They are not members of the directory, just links we suggest. Add any of them to your reader with one click.

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Add your own RSS feeds. This is your personal collection, stored privately in your browser. Click a feed's name to mute it: its posts are hidden until you click it again, and the choice is remembered. Use ✎ to rename, ↑ to share, ✕ to remove.

Don't know the feed address? Try pasting the website address instead, and the reader will search for the feed. This works on many websites, but not all: some websites hide their feeds or do not offer one. If you still cannot find a feed, an AI assistant can often locate one for you.

Your subscriptions are stored only in your own browser and can be exported or deleted by you at any time. This page sets no cookies, collects no personal data and does not track you. The software is free and open (MIT licence) and provided as it is, without warranty of any kind.