Alright, so you've heard our pitch about why the web needs saving. Maybe you're nodding along, maybe you're skeptical. Either way, you're probably wondering: what are we actually building?

Seed Hypermedia is really two things working together: Seed and Hypermedia. Let me explain both.

Seed: The software

Seed is a free, open source application for creating and publishing documents on the web. You can download it right now and start writing.

But Seed isn't just another note-taking app. It's designed from the ground up around a few key principles:

You own your identity. When you create a Seed account, you get a cryptographic key pair. Think of it like a really secure username and password, except no company controls it. Your identity is stored on your device, protected by a twelve-word phrase that only you know.

Your content is signed. Everything you publish is cryptographically signed with your private key. This means anyone can verify that your content actually came from you—even years later, even if it's been copied and shared across the network.

Publishing is peer-to-peer. Your computer can share content directly with other people's computers. No server in the middle. No company that can shut you down or decide you've violated their terms of service.

But you can also use the regular web. Peer-to-peer is great, but sometimes you just want to share a link that works in any browser. Seed makes it easy to publish your content to the traditional web too—either through our free service or on your own domain.

Hypermedia: The protocol

While Seed is the software you interact with, Hypermedia is the underlying protocol that makes everything work. Think of it like the difference between Chrome (the software) and HTTP (the protocol). You use Chrome, but it speaks HTTP.

The Hypermedia protocol defines:

How identities are created and verified

How documents are structured and stored

How changes are tracked and merged

How content is addressed and linked

How permissions and access control work

Why does this matter? Because the protocol is open. Anyone can build software that speaks Hypermedia. You're not locked into using Seed—other applications can read, write, and interact with the same content.

This is how we avoid becoming another walled garden. We're not trying to capture you. We're trying to build infrastructure that anyone can use.

How they work together

Here's the typical flow:

You download Seed and create an account (your cryptographic identity)

You write documents in Seed's editor

Your documents are signed and stored locally on your device

When you publish, your content becomes available via the Hypermedia protocol

Other people running Seed (or any Hypermedia-compatible software) can access your content

Optionally, you publish to the traditional web so anyone with a browser can see it

The result is a publishing system where:

Your identity is portable. Switch devices, switch apps—your identity follows you.

Your content is permanent. Once published, it can be archived and preserved by anyone.

Your links are stable. References point to specific versions of content, so they don't break when things change.

Your audience is yours. No algorithm decides who sees your work.

What Seed is not

Let me be clear about what we're not building:

Not a social media replacement. We're not trying to recreate Twitter or Facebook. There's no feed algorithm, no engagement metrics, no viral dynamics. We're building tools for thoughtful publishing and collaboration.

Not a blockchain. Seed uses cryptography, but it's not a cryptocurrency or an NFT platform. There's no token, no mining, no speculative assets. Just useful software.

Not a walled garden. Everything is open source, and the protocol is open for anyone to implement. If we ever become evil, you can take your identity and content and leave.

Why "hypermedia"?

You might be wondering about the name. "Hypermedia" is actually an old term—it dates back to the 1960s and the pioneers who imagined what connected digital documents could be.

The original vision was ambitious: documents that could link not just to whole pages, but to specific paragraphs, words, or concepts. Two-way links so you could see who was referencing your work. Transclusion, where you could embed pieces of other documents while preserving attribution.

The web we got was a simplified version of this vision. HTML links are one-way and shallow. They break easily. They don't support fine-grained references.

We chose "hypermedia" because we're trying to deliver on that original promise. Deep linking, bidirectional references, embedded quotations with attribution—the features that the web should have had all along.

Get started

Ready to try it?

Download Seed for your operating system

Create an account (it takes about 30 seconds)

Write your first document

Publish it to the web

That's it. No credit card, no email signup, no approval process. Just software that does what you tell it to.