Naming things is hard - DNS for the Federated Web

How should I design my personal DNS for all the cool new Federated Services and IndieWeb protocols?

Way back in the early 2000s, I started this website - shkspr.mobi. A few years later, I added a blog. I could have used the main domain, or created a subdomain like blog.shkspr.mobi. In the end, I chose a subdirectory of shkspr.mobi/blog

I don't know if that was the right choice back then, but it is looking like the wrong choice now.

I want to be a "first class" citizen of the Fediverse. I want a dozen different apps installed on my little slice of the Internet. I want a fairly consistent online identity. What's the best way to do that?

Buy a new domain for every app!

No. This is impractical for two reasons.

1. It's expensive.
2. Nothing ties together my_awesome_photos.biz to read_my_blog.com.

Subdirectories

I currently have /blog. Should I also have /mastodon and /pixelfed and /yet_another_cool_service and...

Maybe? The problem is, most of these new services assume that they're going to be on their own domain. Usernames are based on domains - so I guess I'd end up with @edent-mastodon@shkspr.mobi and @edent-pixelfed@shkspr.mobi? That just looks ugly.

Subdomains

Adding sub-domains is free and easy.

mastodon.shkspr.mobi and pixelfed.shkspr.mobi - done!

But there are a couple of issues.

1. Do I want to name them after the app, or something more generic in case I switch later? Perhaps posts.shkspr.mobi and pictures.shkspr.mobi?
2. Do users understand that they need to follow @edent@location.shkspr.mobi for my Foursquare-style check-ins and @edent@beer.shkspr.mobi for my beer reviews?

One Domain To Rule Them All

Perhaps I'll just have everything on my main domain? That also comes with a few problems! I'll need to install the apps somewhere and then work out how to redirect users to the correct app based on... what? And it still doesn't resolve the username issue.

Just treat everything as a single ActivityPub feed

I think this is where I'm heading.

I've written before about my perfect social network.

• I post items tagged work, tech, sport, politics, etc.
• You decide which of those channels you want to subscribe to.

If you only want to read my sport punditry, subscribe to that channel. If you want everything except my political views, ignore that specific channel.

I could publish everything on a single feed. It is then up to you or your client to work out how to filter that.

I'm still not sure how that would work! Perhaps clients will be smart enough to ignore statuses which don't fit their model? Perhaps users will manually choose what to follow?

That's sort of how Aaron Parecki's unified view works.

What would you do?

If you've done this successfully - or have particularly strong opinions - please let me know!