I think Nostr needs more users, not more microblogging features.
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its going to be hard.
In due time. Kind ser
The CEO hath spoken 🫡
Thats what she said
Perhaps if there were people talking about different things... Bitcoin is nice, but I try to post things that are censored in my country, for example.
Maybe this is what kills nostr. Everyone knows they benefit from everyone else's marketing efforts, so no one invests in marketing.
Engagement has been better lately, but I still think that should be the focus, because it’s something we can each be better about. View quoted note →
We have money. How do we buy users with money?
So many nostr users are developers. This is good but in the short term it’s also very messy.
New users will come at a rate that looks disappointing but if massive waves did, it’d be even more disappointing.
millennials used to be the gods of kickstarting social media, now that power has been given to gen z.
for example: tiktok..
@fiatjaf what do you think is the most effective method of gaining new users? (Bitcoiners)
Gimme coupla btc and I'll invite them, and you'll start hating their toxic presence, 24/7 - like what they do on X - normal day
I'm the only one on here, have not invited one soul from there
Use that money to inform unaware users, tell the story of why they need nostr, and why we build
I hired a bunch off fiverr, but they didn't stay after the job was done. 🙄
More great discussion below 👇
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Perhaps integrating something with existing popular cross-posting apps would put nostr on the radar of people who have followers? If something like that is possible.
I find the Communities function quite hopeful.
There's a community called Exploding Heads which seem to have migrated here maybe. No idea what their story is really. But they seem p active.
Saw them mentioned in the post below. Hopefully the communities feature is featured and more prominently on clients and improved, some clients don't even have it atm even. Hopefully more posses and niche groups turn up:)
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True. Where do we find them?
If you build it, they will come.
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💯 Same as #Bitcoin. #Nostr #AskNostr
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Maybe I’m one of a few who checks the website before downloading an app. It’s only Damus’ site with an appealing look to newcomers, ie Iris and Nostur look like study projects… For sure this quick summary does not give a complete overview as I might have missed another great landing page… Another “issue”: the majority of search results for Nostr lead to GitHub - this doesn’t attract mainstream… It’s not what Nostr offers, but how it is presented.
Ugh. Fine. I'll submit a request marketing plan and attempt to travel all over to various events and conferences promoting Nostr.
That’s the #damus marketing plan 😂💜 we will gladly accept funding and folks to join us :)
I'm not a Damus user 🥹
Ya but you’re part of our marketing plan regardless Derek lol. It’s about growing #nostr and #damus 😍 you’re one of our best ambassadors without using the app and that’s what makes this place so amazing!
I had a short meeting today about speaking at Bitcoin Atlantis. I'd love to go to promote Nostr. However, I can't afford to go unless travel and accomodations are paid. Derek Ross isn't a household name in the Bitcoin community, so I won't be getting my expenses paid unless something changes with their funding. Maybe I should actually do this? Make a small marketing plan and submit a request to @fiatjaf or @OpenSats to pay for these expenses.
I don't have a marketing title by trade, but back when I was a business owner for the better part of a decade, I loved wearing the marketing hat and advertising hat. I have sales and marketing in my blood. I grew up with it. I'm a natural communicator, even though I'm also a tech nerd 🤓😂. I used to speak all of the time. Since I don't technically do this for a living, I don't know if I should? Thoughts? Dumb? Not a good use of donated funds?
Diversity of content is lacking at the moment. (Or maybe there is no depth to the diversity.) Users joined and get bored with seeing the same topics and memes dominate the feed. And they leave.
I suggest some budget is directed toward incentivising people to consistently post short-form / micro-blog good content that is not cryptocurrency focused. (I am not against cryptocurrency, but it is still a niche topic.) Do this until we have a level of critical mass for diverse content.
How do we know when we reach the critical mass? Maybe set a target for number of MAUs that you want to reach? Personally, I prefer not to have a certain target, but to set a time limit on the incentivisation and measure the impact. MAUs before vs MAUs after. Then adapt the incentivisation and repeat. {MAU: monthly active users}
The impact of this approach will take time to show sustainable result, but this might be one of the flywheels that can sustain growth. From HubSpot: "With the flywheel, you use the momentum of your happy customers to drive referrals and repeat sales. Basically, your business keeps spinning."
And maybe slow down adding more and more to the protocol? Let all nostr clients and relays to be on par with each other on most of the NIP implementations. Big parities in NIP implementations affect user experience noticeably. {NIP: nostr implementation possibilities}
Another bonus is that when the apps are mostly at parity with regard to NIPs, they can invest their development energy on improving their apps user experience. Better user experience feeds back into the flywheel above.
Create merchandise, which looks weird, but in a "cool" way.
Limit its supply to a very low amount for no reason.
Make it super expensive for no reason.
This is the perfect recipe for making a brand, that seems so exclusive & "cool" that people want to join it.
This is based on the idea around how sneaker & other clothing brands are doing it. It's also similar to NFTs. Create some shit, make it weirdly limited & exaggeratingly expensive & suddenly its artifical as well as senseless exclusivity draws people in.
A rough estimate puts it around $1500. Economy flight. Cheap hotel.
The biggest problem I see right now is the first use experience. The first 15 minutes you use a product determines whether you continue using it or likely drop it forever.
When you just start #Nostr & you wanna see anything, all Relays have to be queried first, etc. At first, everything is empty.
Happens as well, when you delete the cache of the #Nostr app you use.
People are so used to instant access, it's probably a pretty big blocker to wait for Relays to finish loading the feed, especially in Global, basically like viewing an image in Internet Explorer during 2003.
This is a problem that needs a proper solution. An obvious one would be to build in various effective methods of content filtering & querying. Then everyone can join.
That said, already at this moment there is too much shit content on #Nostr. For example, tons of nude shit, shitcoin scams, advertisements, other scams, etc... It's already tough to avoid this with this tiny user base, as of now.
Second that.
Like, I get why people are excited about #Bitcoin & shit, but come on.
Recently, I actually visited #Nostr less because anyone worth any popularity shit on #Nostr is some #Bitcoin freak talking about #Bitcoin 24/7, as if you could eat, drink & use it as a toy.
It'a really difficult to find people, who do not speak about #Bitcoin literally the entire day & don't even know what time it is, because they count everything in block time...
If a bunch of big freedom creators (with huge audiences) got onboard and started communities on Nostr where their fans could give them (and each other) sats, that would bring in tons of new people. Maybe Salty Cracker, Viva and Barnes, Jordan Peterson, Tim Pool, Russel Brand, etc etc etc. Whadaya think?
If sharing notes on other platforms showed a thumbnail so people could read what they were clicking, it would help reach out of the bubble
nostr has virality.
💯
Ok hear me out...
Soccerstream-style football matches (boxing, tennis etc) sublegal livestreaming on nostr, with a nostr chat function, optional: PvP betting other users.
#grownostr #plebchain rate my idea #asknostr
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I'll also restream the #nostrasia livefeed on cytube, to attract a more undesirable crowd of shitposter 🫡🫡🫡
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Nope, not a client problem. It depends on how you connect to the services, through which network & how many relays allow your requests to go through etc.
If it works well for you, you maybe don't have a lot of different connections & the servers are more available to you. I don't know.
Or I mean, you could define this as a "client problem", but if you do that, then nothing will ever get fixed, because every client configuration will be a "client problem" as in "not my problem" and the actual issue will persist.
Not every "client problem" is not "not your problem".
It's funny how you say that, while your profile is filled with posts, quotes & boosts related to #zaps, #Bitcoin & everything else related to that topic... 😂
Yea, I made websites in the past professionally, but for this I literally whipped up vscode, wrote some manual html and css like a cave man and asked ChatGPT for a gallery snippet.
I didn't want to spend more time on it, prefer to keep building on Nostur itself.
Fully appreciate your App! A good page for onboarding doesn’t bring nothing when the app behind it fails or doesn’t fulfill expectations… Keep it up! 🤙
Do it!
@jack
I can see some sort of uptake in the same way youtubers promote their Rumble, Rokfin and Bitchute channels in the 'just in case I get banned' way they do. I suppose it's how you get the word out that nostr could be seen and used in a similar way too.
Currently watching this which raises a lot of nostr usecase points, mentions Matt Taibbi, censorship, Australian regulation of social media etc etc. Think it could be of interest to a few people here too.
How can we have zero-knowledge recovery that is user friendly?
Agree but not just more users, more diverse users. Really want nostr to be the place I go to engage on all topics
Bull run will bring many
I'm here cos of this video, made nostr sound special/unique - and it is 🙏
@Max DeMarco did a great job
😁
false dichotomy - it can have both
There’s an argument to be made they (Bitcoiners) are easier to onboard as the protocols operate on similar values
Because they are pre-conditioned to understand nostr quickly, and their values usually align with the interoperable and distributed nature of the nostr protocol, so informing them would take less energy then any other user segment. At least that's how I see it.
What do you think?
@Michael fixes this √
Interesting! I was wondering how you got here. How did you get to that video though?
Exactly. For Bitcoiners, it's a much smaller step to get to Nostr. But if we want to have more users, we should think about how to recruit especially (still) non-Bitcoiners. And especially what they need to get started.
Without knowing exactly who or where, there surely is a step-by-step guide on how to start using Nostr.
We can improve the guides, engage in conversations with the anarchist/freedom warrior corner of X and plant seeds.
I love that the programmers are so inspired and passionate about this that they are continuing to build great services to access Nostr.
The users will come when more and more of them experience how painful it is to be silenced, gaslit, shadow banned and censored.
We need more time, and patience.
I believe that it is important to address also and especially non-Bitcoiners. Nostr embodies many of our values and it is these values that should appeal to everyone. It is of course much easier for a bitcoiner to come to Nostr and find their way around, but I think it would be a big mistake to focus on bitcoiners. Bitcoiner will come across Nostr one way or another
I’m more interested in attracting users across a wide variety of use cases. The most interesting building will come from that imo. Focusing only on the bitcoin community when there is already criticism from people who try it that they don’t like the overwhelming amount of Bitcoin content will further pigeonhole Nostr.
One must put values at the center. The incredible community. Then you're ready to learn the technical side.
*we
What content do you believe Nostr needs to be amplified in a fulfilling way?
Just “everything”?
More news? Sports? Original content? Bloggers/writers?
Hmm yeah I agree with you, we should not focus ONLY on bitcoiners. Can you describe what nostr appeals to for you? What value do you experience?
More veelogs
How would you recruit non-bitcoiners? What did it for you?
Haha I follow jack on Twitter/X and he posted about nostr and I had no idea what it was so I didn't pay attention much, thought it was for tech people 🤷🏽♀️. But then he posted this video, and I like a good mini documentary and it got me excited with the way they were explaining it and how creative and collaborative it sounded. I wanted to watch it being built, was very curious. Made me think of a foundation of a house and a bunch of artists building on top of it.
Didn't sign up for like 3 weeks after watching, but only cos the sign up process looked long and I didn't want to make a mistake. Had it on my to do list though and found a spare 10 mins one morning and thought, yepp, today's the day. Followed @Max DeMarco's linked instructions at the bottom of the video and ended up spending the whole day exploring nostr. Didn't think I'd still be here, but you guys have me hooked. And not like tick tock which sucks and makes you lose time and numbs your brain, but I feel like I actually connect with people and learn so much on here 🙏
Very grateful for the video 🙏🥹
Which other use cases will attract users do you think? 🤔
Simple answer is everything. Specifically I would like to focus on creating a space for artists, makers, and creators. The reality is there just isn’t a great platform for independent artists to share their content and work while building an audience. The terms of service of many platforms means once you upload that video or photo your work no longer belongs to you. Some artists face a distribution problem like independent filmmakers. I honestly don’t think we have the right client to begin reaching out to that community yet.
Like a neighborhood being gentrified if you attract the artists others will follow. That’s my opinion.
I think we need to communicate more what Nostr already is.
For me, it's a place where I meet friends and make new friends all the time. I can communicate without being afraid. I see beautiful photos, learn about great people and how they go about their daily lives, we share terrible and great moments, we discuss politics but also sports and lifestyle like health and nutrition. The community is incredibly supportive . You can learn so much here. I myself share few bitcoin content.
In addition, we can determine ourselves which users or content should appear in our timeline. I can discuss in nests or just have fun. I can show my appreciation directly through zaps, likewise I receive this appreciation very directly. I can contribute directly. Can participate in the development itself.
If you know all this, then you are ready to take on technical hurdles and can also endure the fact that not everything runs smoothly technically.
Yep. We could use it in nostr apps too.
Dark Crystal
🙄
PEOPLE WONT SEE THE VALUE OR UNDERSTAND NOSTR AND BITCOIN UNTIL THEY TOUCH THE PERSONS LIFE IN A POSITIVE WAY.
For Christ sakes FB is paying folks to upload videos, while I have to pay for a service to be able to do that here on nostr. Have to pay to go live, the fucking list never ends...
Once freedom and privacy become easy and convenient, that's when nostr wins.
Until then, yall have fun building shit the general public will never pay for or use and keep wondering "why don't we have more people"
🙄
After watching this docu I thought of my 3 features I would love to see on #nostr.
1) Relay wizard which constantly find the best relay composition for me and let me pay once per month where the money will be allocated to the relays afterwards.
2) Algorithm-Builder where ich can easily build (no-code) my algorithm how I want to navigate in the #nostrverse. I do not want to be manipulated by non transparent algorithms
3) you-tube like thing build on #nostr. Censorship resistant and fair monetization for content creators.
fucking absolutely
What you describe is a problem indeed. Nostr is not and will never be a solution to this problem. Nostr is one of the tools to solve completely different problem
Once one realizes he wants to be responsible for his identity, nostr (or alike) is a no-brainer
Until one doesn’t want to bother with responsibility and would better delegate it, nostr (or alike) will never beat a centralized solution
I shared my thoughts on this in my reply to @charlienpub.If we point this out to people outside and they find their way to Nostr, then Nostr will become a recruiter of Bitcoin. Because they will realize that it is these values that Bitcoin holds.
There are quite a few of us already here. And trying to attract others. There’s something genuinely open and public being built here, that many are committing to for many different reasons. With the current ecology of the place, it is still difficult to keep trying to offer original art content, that clearly isn’t that interesting to most. Can feel a bit like shouting to the void. But I, am I’m sure many others, are here to stay, want to help and see this grow, and will keep trying…
Well while most of the times with almost any startup thats true, in this case it seems to me its not and maybe not microblogging but nostr needs more features. Or some kind of a killer feature
Its interesting to build for nostr but tbh I still can’t find anything interesring to consume hete
Do you think there’s a place for Personal Blogging on Nostr?
That is a great explanation! Is there one part you value most between people if content or zaps?
How many new users do you thing we can onboard over time without diluting the niceness of our community?
I fear that with too rapid growth in active users, with people who are used to interacting on twitter for exaple, the way we treat eachother now could be lost 🤔 and it will be just twitter all over again
🫂💜
I think that paid relays are harmful in another way: way more centralization because youre only gonna pay for the top 3 relays, and it will be difficult to reach the top 3 so you have less choice.
You can fix it by using Rumble instead of Youtube
There already is no? Habla is build for longer form content,
Are you guys passionate about things other than Bitcoin? Can't you just post about whatever you're doing?
And interact too!
Nostr seems especially good for that use case because Shamir’s Secret Sharing requires messages to be broadcast as far and wide as possible (prioritizing data availability over all else). Put up the bat signal lol
Oh nevermind actually. I was wrong. Privacy is actually better in this use case
> peer-to-peer protocols are naturally better suited to secret sharing, due to there being no central server that can be surveilled to detect the possible combination of share-holders that a secret-owner might choose
Welcome 😃
Caps lock doesn't make your argument any more logically sound 😉
Actually, no. It is the most diverse posts that appeal to me. It can be a picture, another time a link to a great post on YouTube and another time it's a link to a song that touches me at that very moment.
As for user numbers. I'm split on that.
On the one hand, I think that a slow growth is better. Not everyone has to be on Nostr. I fear for this place.
On the other hand, I have it in my own hands what I look at on Nostr. No algorithm blasts my timeline full of garbage. I can also control content via relays. I am not at the mercy, so I can design my Nostr.
💜🫂
🥹💜🫂
That's what i try to do, just post stuff from my day to day life.
I hold to the theroy if you want to see content, post that content.
The issue is there aren't any desktop clients and the web clients aren't very good at this time. I may be a standout, but I hate using mobile for this stuff.
I can help
but remember
God works hard
But marketers work harder
🚩🚩🚩😂😂😂
I agree 💯% i hve been working/creating/helping some projects like Amethyst & yana nostr clients with my design, and, i have recived just a few zaps, nothing compare with my normal clients that pay my bils on fiat, so, i just do it for pleasur and to help. So, i trust in the future, and i know with some MKT campaighs all nostr projects can Benefict. Hope like some people Invest in good projects like this One
Nice, but now I'm going to break the ice by writing gibberish ...
Como é bom ficar deitada imóvel no sofá e perceber que está sozinha em casa! A verdadeira felicidade é impossível sem solidão.
I would start with Github and go from there.
Wait… if I lose my Pk do I die in the real world?
Lol
Why? What even is your purpose again?
Nothing is ever good enough for dev types it seems
What’s the point of making anything if you don’t even enjoy it yourself?
According to these crazies
why not both?
I’m trying to follow every artist I can find. So if you have any to recommend let me know!
As I manage to encourage or find others I’ll let you know. And would have of course followed you back, but following you already… :)
The topics that I have conversations with people on here about are more diverse than they were six months ago. The trend is moving in the right direction. Do your part to post content and start conversations about things other than Bitcoin and Nostr apps.
Nostr needs more stoic. Too many juveniles here I’ve found. Bring the stoics here and rest will follow
Juvenile in the mind not age*
P.s im new here
I am already bugging all my whatsapp friends :-) though i think nostr would ramp up slow cuz the people are really really saturated with social media .. general vibe is how to leave the ones they already have not to add more
That said , i believe nostr would gradually scale because the sheer number of clients and the communities that each client brings .. for example , i got hooked to yakihonne.com for long posts and ended up joining their community .. thats giving me traction .. i am sure there are lot of people like me who are on nostr because they contribute , or create for a particular client ..
Ok ok, I created an account. Now what? Any good broodwar content on this thing?
I guess that's also how most mainstream encrypted chat apps work? Don't understand why ZBD went full retard with this.
Maybe they did do this and we are just making bad assumptions? I guess the problem is that any app that does this might eventually make some change, knowingly or otherwise, that leaks your SK. This is not theoretical, it has already with cloud password managers and crypto apps.
It's difficult to bring new users in and have them stay. People don't want to manage multiple social graphs.
What I do is to highlight the experience of leaving Facebook and X, focus on that, focus how the algorithm is playing with everyone's mind, keeping everyone addicted and not thinking straight, and how liberating it is to be free from that.
I find that to be a better approach.
Just like when talking about Bitcoin, it's better to just show how the Fiat monetary system is ruining everything.
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View quoted note → Yes, totally agree!
Instead of the bells and whistles, we should concentrate on the new user experiences that weren't possible before. The ones that make a spectacular difference.
A controversial take:
ALL such use-cases will revolve around the integration of bitcoin.
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we attract users based on their decision
Q how more n best can we reach out !
Have you noticed @jack or @npub1sn0w...jdv9 here?
But you are correct possibly.
Are you a constituent element of that so called general people?
Just curious.
But visually different. Typography has some effect.
I introduced it to undergrad ICT classroom. It's a powerful tool of thought.
I’m not sure. Maybe better feed algorithms are also very important and necessary for mass adoption. I still feel like my feed ain’t as curated as it could be. And I think average x.com users would have higher expectations about how meaningful their feed should be (more hot and popular notes first, more personalized)
Plus maybe more standardization between the clients. Like in here, did he mean to both reply and repost? Pretty weird and annoying
Buen punto
In this case, just not the effect he's after.
Arabic verses gone wrong?!
More and different content!
Yes. I have
Needs top 10 frens list.
I think Nostr content is uncomfortable for most regular people :)
Nostr being mostly Bitcoin does not help that either...
We could pay for them to delete accounts! Proof of Exodus.
This is not a bad idea. Is there a way for people to prove they have deleted their X?
I believe nostr is doing more than fine.. these things take time and new users will only come when more infrastructure is added to suit their needs or when most of their network is already in. most people don't understand the need for nostr, they see it as just another platform and they see no benefit in it whatsoever, only those more involved care and understand the need and benefits it brings.
we haven't even met all the early adopters needs, to cater for the rest is still a bit far down the line..
It seems to me that Nostr has a lot of development but they seem to me all like island solution.
I can bring you users, but I need your help.
Contact me if you can develop or have a big following on other networks.
Think of the density of awesome that will happen in Nostr. It will pay to be early.
They will come.
Sorry, notifications are still shit ;)
You're right for sure. I'm on a comfy European fibre connection righ now, so everything is butter-smooth. But even on a shitty 3G connection, it should be possible to request / download a few KB in 1-2 seconds (even with a ping of 500ms).
So unless you government is restricting access, either your client doesn't have enough, or good enough servers, or there's another issue in the client - caching or whatever.
Amongst other factors this depends on the diversity of posts' topics. So not just Bitcoin...
More users. & more content that would be banned on other platforms. We can dunk on shitcoiners anywhere.
They're already here, tho, which is pointless.
That would actually help keep the Twitter/Nostr splitters on board. Lots go over there to see the news and then come here to chat.
Need to attract something else than bitcoin. Nostr is at its maxi right now on this subject
first you gotta have a client with working DMs tho, just sayin'
yeah, and i specifically shun these people because it's one endless hype cycle after another on that engagement gulag
🐔 vs 🥚 issue.
Totally agree!
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This is true even to this day. Maybe the situation is worse now.
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