What I’m Building
Meet Me On Nostr is an app for sharing Nostr with friends. More than ‘just’ an onboarding client, this project will bring the power of “Social Onboarding” to Nostr. The project’s measurable objectives are to grow the number of new users, to increase the retention of active users, and to strengthen the interconnected webs of trusted users. All this can be accomplished “simply” by supporting Nostr advocates in sharing Nostr with their friends.
This project can be broken into two distinct efforts.
Web Client for “socially onboarding” new accounts (with customizable invite QR codes for advocates, low friction profile creation for friends, built in direct messaging with advocates, and WoT powered discovery of new friends, clients, relays, and other stuff recommended by the advocate and their web of trusted friends)
Advocate Support & Metrics to build community and incentivize users around onboarding and retaining their trusted friends on Nostr.
Why Social Onboarding?
Social Onboarding is Nostr’s superpower. Friends sharing Nostr with friends is not only easy and natural, but also happens to be a great way to strengthen Nostr’s webs of trusted users. While it’s not a given that Nostr’s growth will be sustainable, developing tools to support “networks of trusted friends” can only help.
Because Nostr is owned by nobody, anybody is able to benefit (monetarily or socially) from its success. Everybody wins when Nostr grows, but also, everybody wants something different. With Nostr, the superpower comes when everybody gets what they want. Harnessing #grownostr to support “networks of trusted friends” may be as simple as giving advocates the tools and incentives to “curate” their own corner of the broader social network.
Invite your trusted friends, and help them to stay a while.
Because there is no “sherif of Nostr”, traditional approaches to content moderation have no power. To overcome the growing influence of bots and bad actors, Webs of Trust is still the best (and only?) form of decentralized moderation. The challenge for onboarding, in this context, is to “rapidly on-ramp” new users into trusted networks, BEFORE the spambots ruin their vibe. Social Onboarding by Nostr advocates solves this problem, while being “relatively” straightforward to tool up and incentivize.
Development Timeline & Milestones
As of this writing, I have an “almost MVP complete” web client (alpha-0.4) running live at nostrmeet.me. MVP could be completed by the time of BTC Prague (3 weeks). Target Release may have an early release as soon as Nostriga, but will likely be feature complete by mid autumn (6 months)
Minimum Viable Product
When complete, the Minimum Viable Product will allow advocates to invite their friends to a direct message chat on Nostr with minimal “onboarding” friction. What’s live today, is the invite and profile creation, but lacking DM integration.
[+] Invite QR codes [+] Invite accept screen with “low friction” profile creation. [+] Automatic Nip05 addresses for new profiles. [+] Private “cloud encrypted” key storage using NIP46 (password not stored) providing key management for new profiles. [+] Receipt logging of accepted invites (allows tracking of account creation by web client through encrypted receipts) [+] Optional “do not store” encrypted key and “keep me anonymous” receipt logging. [+] Login to web client with “cloud encrypted” key using only username and password. Retrieve nsec (unencrypted key) anytime. [ ] Direct message integration for new accounts and their advocates.
Target Release
The Target Release (maybe as soon as Nostriga), will push forward on both efforts of this project (web client and advocate support) to solidify a “baseline” toolset to measure and implement Social Onboarding for Nostr.
[ ] Customizable Invites for Advocates (allowing for private invites, limited use invites, private group invites, follow a list from invite, join relays from invite, zap to ecash after invite, and other extendable options) [ ] WoT Network Explorer for new users to find new follows and trusted friends (and view their timelines) directly from the web client. [ ] WoT Recomendations for new users to discover (and launch or subscribe to) clients and relays (and other stuff?) right from the web client. [ ] Metrics and data collection to quantify the success of “social onboarding”, and what accounts are involved. [ ] Top Advocates Awards (using these data) to incentivize onboarding of new, active, and trusted users. [ ] Advocate Training and support (in the form of chat groups, hangouts, meetups, wikis, etc) to share best practices and tips for growing one’s own web of trusted friends.
Funding and Moving Forward …
So far, this is a passion project. Born from many hours conversation with and observation of Nostr advocates and new users.
In January 2024, I managed to secure a $10k seed sponsorship for MVP development from Blockhenge. I hope to continue funding this project through sponsorships from Nostr adjacent businesses.
Everybody wins when more trusted friends join Nostr.
I am currently looking for a dev assistant and funding to last us both through fall 2024. Please contact me directly if your business might be interested.
I am not daunted… but this is a HUGE setback. I now have to shift gears to fundraising “on the side” (and shift to other paying gigs, which I’ve put aside) rather than developing “in earnest” as I have been.
Mani’s gotta eat, but I’d rather work on Nostr.
If you know of ANY Nostr adjacent businesses who might wish to sponsor Nostr’s PREMIER Social Onboarding client … please comment or send me DM. I am actively looking for business sponsors now.