Looking for the killer app for Solid

83

A pod needs to be as easy to install and run as downloading an app from the app store. Don’t mention Wordpress (which I’ve used for 15 years, I get your point).

The killer app could be an existing front end like 1Password or Buffer. I’m sure there will be many, just like Twitterbot, Tweetdeck and all of those related apps. 1Password is a great example of an existing app to tie into: Add POD access and then spend far too much time trying to figure out how to present access controls that my mom understands.

Someone mentioned gradual sharing of data. That is a HUGE deal in the dating industry. I know the CEO of Match, wonder if she would be interested.

As I dive deeper, I keep thinking that social media and images on the blockchain/PODS are not great areas to venture into. Stick with personal data, not worried about tweets and getting paid for memes.

84

After I read and tested links of previous posts I rewrite the proposal. It is a bit long, sorry.

Agoras are places where people meet. A kinf of social media. They read the posts subscribers save in their private storages. They can download them but do not own them and are not allowed to redistribute them. They scenarize them and can monetize this scenarization in the way they want, with ads for instance: The goal is not to control them but make concurrence exist and let you be free to go.

Posts are created by a specific editor. They are expressed in an RDF language and agoras can understand them without the need of any technical description.
Posts editors are distinct from agoras because the same post can target distinct agoras. They act in the same way as mail clients which can send mails to recipients of different mail accounts providers (what has not always been the case in 1990’s with AOL or Lotus Notes). When creating a new post a user select the target agoras in the same way you select recipients when writing a mail and so get a form having mandatory and optional fields for the selected agoras. Fields are defined using ontologies, same field can be used by different agoras. When posts are created notifications are sent to agoras.
The agoras should provide such multi-agoras editors so that users can post without leaving the agora but this is not mandatory. You can log in an agora and use its editor to post to another agora as data is saved in your Pod.
User interactions (“Likes”, comments and answers) are stored as usual in the author’s storage and links to them are created in the storage of the user of the original post.

Let’s dream a bit:
I am used in only using a FB-like agora but I am moving. I subscribe to a “newcomers” agora. When creating an FB-like post, I may also select this “newcomers” agora as target and so have to fill in a new field where I mention my new city: In this agora post are organized by cities and there I will be able to introduce myself. After a couple of weeks, I will probably stop posting to this agora but I will have a look at it from time to time in case a newcomer needs help or information.

We plan a wonderful travel. Using a provider, I select my private agora in its catalog and create it in one click. While preparing and traveling we and all our followers post in the agora. When back home we close it but a tool allows each of the participant to download it as an archive and keep the possibility to look at it offline. In 20 years, my children will be happy to show it to their children.

As you can see this not a question of developing a tool but defining a simple architecture based on existing (and widely underemployed) protocols (ActivityPub), tools (Solid) and specifications (RDF). Then the bet is that people and organizations will see they can easily create an agora and get an audience in this non-proprietary and non exclusive eco-system.
The best way to validate this could be to create a mockup. Bon-prix tool from @smag0 already does a big part of the job.

85

In terms of opportunities for worldwide growth and adoption, third-party cookies are being phased out. Here’s a mega-billion dollar market looking for a new solution. What are cookies but tiny limited PODS? How publishers are preparing for a post-cookies future

1 Like
86

My take is to focus on personal data. Images/video DRM is being taken care of elsewhere in the NFT ecosystem and they are miles ahead and something like $500M in funding. NFT’s appear to solved 90% of “image ownership”. Maybe OS devs will have to customize screenshot functionality as well.

87

Nice take on Access levels, but no button, we don’t need to add html/css to 50 billion web pages. Most of this information is in 1Password already, pretty straightforward concept to enable 1Pass to share fine-grained access controls behind the scenes, without user intervention unless warranted. Idea is user primes their anonymous hash and level 2-3 beforehand as defaults. Reminds me of early Facebook Connect where you could choose what’s shared. All this has been done already, need to remix so it works better across the board.

88

Hi John - could I contribute to this too please? As a day job i work in the UK local gov space and completely get the issue you describe. Out of work I am involved in setting up a grass roots community data company model to enable community data optimisation - a part of which would be permissioned personal data. Would be very happy to contribute… Regards

89

Most overlooked comment right here.

90

IMHO, the killer app that deploys Solid protocols to millions won’t be ‘about’ Solid. The broad adoption will come when Solid functionality is subsequent to the economic model of XYZ killer app.

2 Likes
91

Dealing with images is never going to work on social media in the near term. Love to be proven wrong, but the NFT market will rule this aspect of getting paid and recognized for a meme or a photo of a cat. I don’t care if Facebook owns my photos, they just announced the leaking of 500+ million people’s personal data.

If ever there was a time to start making some noice, now is it. Forget the programming, the little pet projects, this needs a few hundreds million in capital to start building fast and strike while the iron is hot. I’m not feeling much of a sense of urgency from this community. Who’s lighting the big fuse?

2 Likes
92

Be patient grasshopper. Solid is a multi year project, many of us thought the way you do about speed and expediency to market but, it is highly unlikely solid will be main stream anytime in the near future. It’s more like a long-term research project, and it’s going to take more time, from what I understand the solid project is pretty old, it’s an old idea pulled out of the archives to suit the new Web in the future.

4 Likes
93

2006.That’s when we were at the Identity Conference talking about the concept of Solid and the attention economy. I’ve waited 14 years, I get the patience part. Solid gets people’s attention and using apps, but it needs an established front end. It’s time to ride the wave of public interest in data ownership. Example: Is anyone talking to the folks at Brave? Their IPFS integration is interesting IPFS Support in Brave. It shows they are open to trying all sorts of things. How many months to build Soild/POD access into Brave, even if it’s hidden by default and turned on via flags?

1 Like
94

Why it needs an established front end?

95

Wouldn’t a killer app just be something like instagram, but with pod hosted data? Most people I know don’t use facebook or instagram anymore only because of the privacy and ownership problem.

96

It took me a while to realize how theoretical and alpha Solid it, truly a research project and not “here’s the API/dev kit, get building which was my expectation.” Reminds me of web pages circa 1992 when wow, images can be displayed! This said, I feel like people are thinking far too small and myopically, and focusing on unhelpful areas, but that’s just my opinion.

My focus is using Solid to manage advertising preferences and data sharing. Not creating a new social network, another Flickr/Imgr/Facebook, or tracking a billion images uploaded every day.

Create a MVP back end, use an existing app as the front end, bake it into the Brave browser, and get some feedback at a meaningful scale. Or make a plugin, stopgap measure, at this point who cares, just get it done and people using it.

Because it’s easier to integrate with 1password and Brave for example, than it is to wait for someone on this list to build something from scratch. Also, access to millions of people. Advertisers and ad networks are freaking out about the loss of 3rd party cookies for example. There’s a huge use case right there. Worrying about travel and medical-focused pods is great, but there is a much larger opportunity right in front of us and it seems it’s being ignored for the most part.

I walked through all of this with an entrepreneur friend and we sketched out the entire ecosystem, ad networks, business logic, and front end, in about an hour. Not perfect by any means, but enough to get the right people excited about participating. That’s my role.

Imagine going to a website and not seeing any ads, a true paradigm shift possible by the end of the year. Imagine brands have a more effective connection with consumers, lower acquisition costs, and far less intrusive? Huge opportunity.

Maybe I need to sketch up a business plan and shop it around instead of talking here, I’ll consider that. Start the company, get it funded, and get out of the way. I posted one of the first ads on the web back in 1994 (AT&T You Will, something like a 70% CTR) so maybe a little guilty for working with early ad networks but I was 22 and what did I know at the time.

Love the work being done here, keep it up!

4 Likes
97

the prototype for a Social Media app that is organically growing as a non-profit under US tax laws is https://signal.org. It has garnered a reputation for trust (I’m not qualified to claim it’s deserved). It uses contacts from your phone and makes claims of securely finding whether the ppl in your phone contacts list are already on their system. One then connects to others on the platform with a verification protocol. Users can txt, phone and conference (zoom like) free. This app has garnered a fairly impressive user base who funds the org with tax-free donations (like Wikipedia?). Now, can a SolidWorld ecosystem exceed its utility or be adjunctive to it? Thinking yes, IF Solid opens such a user base to broad and general data collaboration. Thoughts?