Oddbean new post about login | logout Thanks to some analysis from our intern @Jeroen ✅ , according to opt-in AppStore analytics one of the biggest issues with Damus is user retention. 99% of people stop using damus after 6 months. In the next version we will be looking at ways to get mores users to that “ah ha” moment that gets them to stick around like all of us addicts. Ideas welcome! Notifications is obviously a big one, but maybe we could make it easier to get people their first sats.
Maybe small sats receive (reward) when you keep loging in to the app?
Me, @elsat and @danieldaquino discussed this at our standup this morning. It’s an interesting idea.
we tried. it is not sustainable..!
“Stop using” as in app deletion I’m assuming.
The appstore gives us retention data: in aggregate how many people stop opening the app. I’m not sure how it’s collected tbh. Maybe this is in appstore tos ?
Ok, so app opens. Wondering how much China ban is eating into these numbers. 🤔
Or by “opt-in AppStore analytics” we mean: 1) They haven’t opened the app? 2) They haven’t posted a note?
The data we’re using is from appstore connect analytics. They collect data on downloads. I’m not 100% sure how they collect retention, maybe app uninstalls? Every appstore app has access to those data. We don’t collect data in app. We don’t look at last post data yet, but could (anyone could)
Yes very true. Wonder is Apple would get that granular from an App Store perspective, but most likely if they can, they do.
Retention is active unique devices with active session per timeframe. Users sharing this data with apple is opt-in in phone settings, but Apple gives us the opt-in ratio.
Interesting. Thank you for all this info! 🫂
One thing I think folks miss compared to other platforms are what’s trending/happening outside of Nostr, News, Entertainment etc
We gotchu covered there https://dissentwatch.com/trending/?trending_order=reactions&timeframe=today
I think I seen this idea posted somewhere already, but if not: A return to current spot on your feed rather than starting at the top each time would be great. Sometimes it works to swipe back and forth between screens without losing your position. Being able to tab back and forth would be slick.
Here's a list: - broken threads (I tap the reply, the rest of the thread is missing) - "nostr:" urls are broken all over the place. - for some reason images don't always load (is this NIP-95 crap still?) - reposts/quotes should rebroadcast (did ya'll already get that one? I forget.) - mute words - custom feeds (can add defaults for newbs, like #photography, #art, etc.) These are a few things I have to explain to new people, which seem like a degraded experience to a noob coming from Twitter, et al. or seem to be essential to manage the differences. They aren't a reflection of my feelings, to be clear. Just what confuses my fam and friends.
More feet?
You’re hired
I think lack of content discovery is a big issue. When you see all things bitcoin and no other useful content, it’s easier to leave. I’m eager to test that, wouldn’t take my word for it.
From feedback it seems content discovery is the big one, I assume this is true as most value experienced seems to be derived from interaction with people and notes in the network. Care to share your plans on improving on this?
Some thoughts: https://cln.sh/WHTJqcJG
Is this Testflight or normal store or both?
Normal store
Two thoughts. Premise, normal users aren’t switching to another client: (1) I survived 6 months because the Nostr is a great place to get memes. My wife requires 8 decent memes per day. Hashtag following ftw. (2) Account discovery is a pain. But I think I survived in part bc I found ~5 accounts who are regularly adding value to my life. @LynAlden longform content. @Sergio for booze ideas. @corndalorian memes. @Asone for francophone/humor. @Mallory for I think witticism. (I will think of others when I post this.) —> In app follow lists or circles would be cool. Zaps surprisingly figured more into 2-week stickiness than 6-month.
thoughts for @Jeroen ✅
🔥🤙
#Amethyst has a tab for just scrolling through content. Images and videos. That can be pretty good for discovery. It can get u occasionally annoying though because you'll run into porn and erotica which makes me double think going through there when in public.
Thank you! What a lovely compliment 🫂💜
⚡️💜🖋️
We need more big names on Damus. Like Paul Krugman.
He’d be fantastic here. https://image.nostr.build/62f40c0e7f6a78eabc436317fe22804115c24aac194522f718ac4c794de5fd8d.jpg
I think one of the big factors in retention is how frequently the app is updated with new features or improvements. TestFlight is great and that’s what keeps me using Damus, but I think I would abandon it if I were on the AppStore version. My 2 sats worth of option 🐶🐾🫡
Integrate variable discovery options into the client. Zap.stream, nostr.cooking 😃
This
No one cares about sats except weirdos. You already have a stable app with decent branding. Mostly what you need is to advertise and shill the heck out of it for long stretches of time. Find a community based reason to get people over, invent a fake one if you have to. Find a way to get funding (maybe you have already) and then buy lots of ad space on social media, search engines, etc.
After surveying many people, the aha moment for them was zaps. I wouldn’t discount it. It’s the most unique thing about this network.
It’s all about the zaps. ⚡️
Since apple forced zaps away, the stream of zaps faded a lot in my experience. Correlation might not equal causation, but I really look forward a version of damus that has zaps on notes. 🫣
Surveying the 1% who stayed... https://image.nostr.build/96ef71b9c362aaf8f2ffcb368c1f66376f5477690356efa85b9cc563307f5b2a.jpg
What if it’s the sats that are making them leave?
Do you mean to imply that being bombarded by people telling you to set up another whole app thingy for "crypto" is offputting after surviving setting up their Nostr client? /s
Yes 😂
You can't follow hash tags on Damus yet, right? I set it up for my mom and didn't notice a way to. That would help, an easy way to build her feed with something she'd like. God bless #Catstr
This to
Better more native translation would be huge for me. I come to Nostr seeking mind share across cultures.
Have you tried https://translate.nostr.wine ? It works really well
Some sort of zap escrow that releases once they connect a wallet. Could be returned if not claimed after x amount of time. Probably too custodial though. Building around hashtags that form into communities with aligning interests is the way to go for more growth imo.
My biggest issue with this platform is the echo chamber. I want a social experience and news. Not just constant messages about how Bitcoin will save us from Skynet (and I like Bitcoin).
Maybe you follow too many bitcoiners ? I don’t have this problem for some reason. I don’t see that much bitcoin content.
Most of the Bitcoin content I see is from my husband. Lol.
I don't know man. I started following everyone that wasn't a bot a few months ago. Leave some recommendations here.
This is a great start nostr:note1dd90uwuprp8h8cv4plyuw3j6rd3r57knncga4rwax3a4apn6l7ksmhuwyq
Follow #art if you like it, my profile is full of it
If you could offer key topics, and people to follow who post on those topics? Memes, Bitcoin, politics, food, photography, videos, etc? Maybe some sort of special feature for content creators to receive zaps?
Do nothing, they will come. https://image.nostr.build/150b94f8393a250d9bdbea6744753eaf4fc783f862bd6ea15631d11048cc7b11.gif
The mission keeps me here. The lack of polish keeps me from getting addicted. Sometimes pictures are blurred, I tap and they still don’t load! Sometimes I tap a reply and I can’t see the original post for 30 seconds.
Possible helpful framework; -what is the purpose? -who is the primary target? For them, what is “value?” How is that delivered? -who are your supporting non-targets? “Value” to them? Delivered how? -what are the goals and indicators that help reach them? -who will do what with what human/material resources by what time? AKA 1. What is your mission? 2. Who is your Customer? Your Supporting Customers? What is “Value” to these groups? How will that be provided? 3. What will be considered “results?” 4. Goals, Objectives…? 5. What is the plan? This is very condensed. I can answer questions. Strategic Thinking and Planning.
Notifications might be a big thing. A lot of time I don't even see someone reacted to my posts and at the same time there is purple dot indication on notifications when there is nothing new showing in the tab. It is easy to miss posts by people i'm following. Something like lists or multiple feeds (for different themes, groups...) would help a lot. Both these issues mean I don't see things I'd react to, in some cases even leading tothe other side feeling like I'm ignoring them. This is crucial esp. for new users imo. I have to manually go to each users profiles to see if there is something I missed. Yes I'm following 1000 npubs so my feed gets similar to global at times. But even that can be not that busy at times and I still miss some notes from people I'm following because of timing mismatch (they post at different time than when I'm looking at my feed). Hope this helps. Thanks for your hard work 👍.
I'm also not seeing all the likes/replies and zaps in the feed so everything looks much more dead than it actually is. Primal for example doesnt "suffer" from this. One has to open the note to load these. Also, when replies are nested in various ways, all is hidden by default so you have to dig and dig in for all the replies. Looks dead and it's annoying to navigate through.
We shook hands in Amsterdam, there was no time unfortunately to say only one thing. You need zaps back on IOS. Don’t know how you can achieve it, but that’s what you need. Using apps in TestFlight now to just be able to tapzap…
If theres a will there’s a way
I still think rewarding people sats as part of the onboarding process for completing their profile is a good idea. Add a profile picture, get 5 sats, next add a bio, get 5 sats, etc. When you're done with on-boarding they get sats sent to their entered LN address. Maybe the whole process rewards 21 sats?
We also need a way for new people to get seen. Tik Tok blew up fast because their algorithm was allowing an avg new user a chance to be seen and get a post that got millions of views. I know Nostr doesn't have the user base for that level of attention but there has to be at least some attention/engagement out the gate or they give up on it. I feel like a lot of new users are talking into the abyss then they give up on Nostr. Sats on the on boarding process is a cool idea. At least gives them the chance to Zap people out the gate. Also 5 sats for commenting on a post. Communication with new people might help people stick around. I feel like a couple good follows and engagement from the start might help retention.
Nostr devs overlook a crucial point about the modern world.: Huge numbers of social media users esp on twitter (and majority of westerners who are under 35) describe themselves as socialists. They are not interested in crypto. They want to socialise their opinions not monetise them. Crypto capitalism is a turnoff for many. Zaps have hindered nostrs appeal to the masses, it only excites nostr nerds and devs who own crypto already.
I am under 35 and majority of my friends I showed zaps to thought they were cool and didn't get turned off by it. They also lean left politically so I disagree with that statement. Nostr can be used without zaps as well. Simple, use Damus from the iOS store and never see Zap button on posts. Who you are talking about is the minority and they will be seen on Bluesky 😂😂😂
So? YOU are a bitcoin nerd, so am I. That doesn't mean most people are. Literally everyone knows most people don't own or use bitcoin, and even those that do will unlilely use their own node or be willing to give their identity to a third party to use lightning if it confers no obvious advantage (and is NOT EASY to do) compared to paying 1 dollar to twitter. Lightning payments reveal your identity to third parties without your own known. How is that better than twitter really?
Nostr doesn't need to stand on the side of the road with the skirt pushed up
I feel like it actually does. Thats why retention is terrible, and almost nobody uses it at all, never mind retain interest. I log on and all I see is bitcoin zaps stack nodes lighning. Nobody cares, they want to chat not fill out KYC forms and jump through hoops to tip 0.000001$ to some rich dude.
Yes! Can we have a #zap pool reserved for new users that can only be unlocked after certain milestones, to prevent abuse?
Are algos the answer? Perhaps people are too use to being spoonfed their content on other platforms and don’t get the same dopamine rush here regardless of how neat the tech. We’ve been very tech focused which is great but we’re competing against these big companies that design these perfect dopamine hits loaded one after another by the algo.
Maybe a starter in app wallet with a tutorial on other more highly recommended wallets.. In app links for other Nostr apps with a DCC (Damus client connect) possibility.. A toggle on global to see trending posts or most visited # threads… either way I’m here to stay..🫂💜🫡
Zaps are the ah ha moment for both nostr and bitcoin.
Complete quest and receive sats
The quest is "get someone to zap you some sats" - and you win a badge. 1) encourage new users to be social and make connections and post great content 2) damus doesn't need to front the sats ;)
Apple's zap oppression has cramped my style
Are you using ZapplePay? I got the script for the TestFlight version of Damus so haven’t been pushed down that route yet
Search is also terrible. Type something in, zero results. Preface with hashtag, you get some results. Maybe automatically prepend one word searches with a hashtag.
During onboarding, ask for topics they like and auto subscribe them to those topics temporarily. So they have content to engage with from the start. Then in 10-20 days, ask them to follow and subscribe to their own likings. People dont stay here cause it is empty at the start. I can help with this and similar projects. dm me.
We wrote and released a nostr iOS notification service which you could use for Damus. https://github.com/planetary-social/nos-notification-service-go
Not being able to zap in the app really sucks.
🎯💊💜To improve Damus user retention, focus on enhancing onboarding, implementing gamification, in-app education, and community building, while continually seeking user feedback and offering incentives for referrals. Regularly update the app with new features and personalize the user experience to maintain engagement and promote decentralization.
I think the aha moment (for users) is when they understand the scope of #nostr .. every client should somehow convey what is it all about !.. may be have links to multiple apps on the landing page when users get little comfy .. As regards to cleint specific user retention .. I think every client has a core community.. #nostr shall be a collection of communities built around thousands of clients ..each surving a unique purpose but meshed across .. ultimately , every website would be a nostr client so that users could use keys and zaps across the web ..
Maybe I’m missing something, but it was very hard to find people to follow. I had to go to a third-party website to find peoples addresses that I wanted to follow. Twitter/X sure has the follow suggestions down.
IIt’s important to discuss things outside of our niche to attract new users with various interests, even beyond the realm of Bitcoin. Nostr’s functionality is just as good, if not better, than X. The only limitation is its network. Until the world beyond Nostr becomes aware of it and is convinced, it’s challenging to become a large social network. People who are not into Bitcoin will likely leave because, at the moment, it’s essentially a Bitcoin network.
Proud 1%er here💜 Keep feed from straying away when reloading on. Pick up where you left off. Go to latest/recent button.
Hmm, Your stats are always going to look like you have a “retention problem” because you are the on-ramp into Nostr from the iPhone, People start with Damus and then they realize there are other clients and experiences which they try, some subset of that population will always prefer the other app because you can’t cater to every preference you have to build the Damus experience.
Also, I suspect a lot of users come from Reddit expecting communities like subreddits. But this app seems to be more like twitter. Profile centric, and that’s less valuable to them. I am one of these folks, where do I start adding my communities I like and how can I make one?
For me the search function is a BIG ONE : can’t find a topics I want to read about. Second, when I interact with a note and come back to the feed I have to scroll back down… so I just scroll down without interacting with notes. Third, trying to attract big fish to follow with great content and have a trending tab to find user and new topics. Hope it helps
I don't think that this is a problem that Damus can fix alone. Developing the greater Nostr ecosystem help bolster the value of every app on Nostr. We are very much in a "Rising tide lifts all boats" enviornment. Seeing the value of having a Nostr account beyone just exploring twitter-like experiences is essential.
Do you really need to make more users addicted? ;-) Let me do some self PR here. As a tech consultant / community strategist I'm also trying to explain why retention matters in a social network app focused on petrolheads of a client of mine (you can find the app Proudwheels in the stores). We are always looking how we can improve retention with adding value for those petrolheads (with their consent, being relevant, which is not always content showed in a chrononical way). I'm a believer in serendenpenity. It's hard, the competition on attention is really hard. Already working on this topic for 2 years with my client. If you need any help or advice, please reach out. As a Nostr believer I'm eager to help and invest in #growNostr. In Amsterdam @Jeroen ✅ and I met and discovered we're both living nearby. I would be curious in the reasons why those 99% stopped using Damus. My guess there will be plenty type of reasons.
Performance and cohesive experience. nostrdb and just reporting actual counts would go a far way. Things working in the way people assume them to work matters.
Wrote some code on the plane to amsterdam for collecting like stats in nostrdb. soon 😎
You need interesting people, influencers, and from a vast variety of fields, not just bitcoin, only meat, longevity and co. These people sign exclusive deals with platforms. Here they can crowdfunding. Much more powerful. But a kickstart funding would go a long way. Bring in 10 for 1M.
Jack is right. People are use to the flawless experience from these big corps platforms. We are making progress but still a ways away from being comparable. The avg social media user who trys Nostr isn't into the topics of Bitcoin, Freedom, etc that we are all passionate about so when they see only those topics trending and posted everywhere they get put off. Sad to say it but we definitely need more variety of people on here talking sports, music, fashion, pop culture, etc for the avg social media user to be entertained enough to stick around and an easier way of being found or seen. However maybe chasing these people doesn't make sense because if we just trying mimic other platforms we will always be second best. Nostr probably will be niche for a while until those bigger platforms implode. Just glad this exit valve exists at the right time. Tyranny is rising.
Need to open the client with a light background instead of defaulting to whatever the user has set on iOS. Easier to get people engaged with brighter backgrounds. If you are lucky to onboard a ‘power user’ he will be inclined to dig into settings to update than someone taking a quick glance. At least give the option when first starting up. 👊
I also just made the mistake assuming an all male audience starting out… That’s obviously something to highlight. A handful of posts they can start out seeing. Give them the ability to throw a ‘🤙🏾’ for instant data in which to rotate out. Everything else is great imo.
Does Damus still require the App Store or has this been fixed already?
I'm new and have every intention of staying bc I get the bigger picture. But it's a big learning curve! Issues I still have: finding people to follow via the search (especially with hashtags), I'd like to actually follow a hashtag, and I can't participate with sending sats (sats/zaps...are they the same thing???) via Damus on my iPhone. The help I get is usually along the lines of "get rid of your iPhone...learn how to work around or code techy stuff..." which actually isn't helpful. I *get* the idea, and I'd *like* to get there, but I'm walking here and I'm not ready or trained for that kind of marathon. I don't feel like the experience is easy enough to get my friends/followers on board here yet, even *if* they saw the bigger picture.
It definitely took me a while to get accustomed. Figured out it was cause I’m used to an algorithm making me at home instantly. Whereas in Damus the universe feed overwhelmed and turned me off for a while. It was only when I finally decided to follow people off of someone else’s follower list that things clicked. One way to solve this could be to ask people what their interested in, then provide them a selection of popular accounts to follow in that niche before dumping them straight into the universe. Or a somehow immediately show then people from their contacts that are on nostr.
Honestly, I started with Damus, but I’ve found it to be lagging and freezing on me quite often, I still have it installed, and actually like the UI better than other apps, I installed another app to see if it was the app or my setup that was freezing, and this other app works just fine, glad to provide more feedback if it would be helpful!
https://image.nostr.build/d101562c37f13aae0e68d96e88c01e6994222a57b86e2694d82156f241a7ef01.jpg WE. ARE. THE. 1% ✊ nostr:nevent1qqs8krvs7xtnmgww5xrvshaapxe7fez4eex58zmq50gln24uz6q5rrcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsr9cvzwc652r4m83d86ykplrnm9dg5gwdvzzn8ameanlvut35wy3grqsqqqqqp9qcx8y
People don't use twitter to make money, they use it because that's where people are listening. They don't care about sats. If anything I think sats is a turnoff, it adds complexity, people want simplicity, average people don't like the crypto vibes - nerdy at best, darkwebby at worse. Crypto won't help retention, it will put more people off than attract them. Please don't go that route. Nostr users are not average people. If we want average people, make it simple to use and find a way to introduce cross posting with twitter.
some hard to swallow truth in that! it'll change one day, no doubt. but rn it ain't it.
To be honest, I believe the most significant challenge in retaining users on the app is its exclusivity. Even for individuals who are enthusiastic about Bitcoin, freedom of speech, and value decentralized protocols in today’s world, it can sometimes become tedious, isolating, and appear purposeless.
Daily sats for discovering certain features of the app daily, obviously this tied to the apple ID not the nsec, this in order to avoid abuse. Doing so just for posts and reposts would mean an increase of SPAM on Nostr which is not ideal, instead if they post with a certain # we as community could start onboarding them and sneding them sats depending on activity.
User Retention is not a bug, it's a feature. You know what makes people "stick around" ? Algos, outrage porn, everything toxic about traditional social media. "User retention" is just another way of saying how do make my app more addicting. Onboarding zaps won't do that. Normies don't really care that much. It's okay if people aren't using your app all the time. nostr will still be here when they need it. If user retention on nostr is ever close to where traditional social media is now, I will consider it to have been centralized and failed. The only way you addict people to app like they have is if content curation becomes centralized through very few algorithms. nostr:note10vxepuvh8ksuagvxep0m6zdnunj9tnjdgw9kpg73lx4tc95pgx8sell6ep
Just give them a few buttons to push to clone people’s follow lists. Guarantee Dorsey’s Damus feed is fire
I feel like I just see things as they are posting, which is cool, but I also want to see some trending topics over the last several hours in which I wasn't logged in. Is there a way of automatically searching posts that have gotten more interaction and interspersing them in my feed?
I'm one of those (among the minority here?) who still use other platforms like X alongside Nostr because they feel distinctly different. Nostr definitely feels healthier. I get the part about it lacking that same aggressive level of algo-fueled fine-tuned dopamine hits. I tried NOSTR via Amethyst and Snort in early 2023 or late 2022. Showed promised but didn't get hooked. Was a bit janky and empty. Jumped back in 5-6 months later and it already felt a lot better. I'm still here this time. Maybe with constant improvement retention will improve. That "early adopter to mass adoption" curve exists for a reason. This might just be a personality trait, but I find there's something addictive about being in control. Maybe it's because of being aware that I'm not in control elsewhere. It also feels more real and authentic here. There's no illusion or sleight of hand tricks. Maybe eventually people can pick custom algos or have other ways to tailor not only their experience, but how they prefer to consume it (type of view e.g. more text based vs more image based vs live chats/live streams, etc.)
Add trending and other feed categorization, so I get something else than same bitcoin/nostr meme shit over and over. I don't have nostr, because I use android, but atleast on amethyst, there is no way to do any filtering. Primal is most usable client atm, but not available on app store yet. Another thing is I follow local politics on X. If there would be some way to get that feed to nostr, I wouldn't have to log X again. I know this is because X is closed system, but just saying ;)
Glittery Animations and sound effects
The UX is what keeps me away from Damus. It’s the fastest to retrieve new notes and notifications. It’s also solid to show notes that maybe missing from elsewhere. The rest I find lacking. Some of the things I have noticed (by heart so sorry for errors/things already fixed): The notes are not presented in a consistent manner. For example, quoted notes were not shown (only the noteid) and the order is not how it’s structured in the OG note source (when links & images). Search is very limited. Basic features are missing that you can find in the other browsers. I would encourage use Nostur as a reference. The iPad UI is horrible. The notes are stretched across the whole width. Scrolling is not smooth. There’s so much more but just to give some pointers. Happy to elaborate more and keep up the good work. PS. I did the Finnish translation of Damus some months back but haven’t seen it implemented.
1. Bookmark and star hashtags or the ability to follow specific hashtags. 2. Get nostr nest integrated into the app. So people can start or join instantly. 3. If nostr ecosystem is going to grow it going to need to cater to more audiences than bitcoin and #bitcoin wallets.
Well I ‘ve tried and used primal and plebster. Indeed the discovery on content and users fells different and nice due to their algos (primal), but for me its not as stable and consistent as Damus. Whatever you do , either “latest 24h”, “top notes” whatever, dont lose the great consistency your client has. Great work and thanks! ps: I’m still on #damus 😎
One of Nostr's problems is that it is almost monothematic, focusing almost exclusively on discussions or memes about bitcoin. A much greater diversity of topics is needed. Here I miss discussions about science, humanities, politics, and current news in general.
I think the Sats received stat that I saw on nostr.band is the right idea. A major attraction to me is cumulative likes on TikTok and cumulative Karma points on Reddit, as a reward for adding something valuable to the conversation.
A cool option would be to group favourited users posts/replies together in a ‘what’s new’ tab. Similar to Instagram stories. A sort of ‘new posts since last log-in’ rather than all the posts being sorted by time stamp? So an example for my account would be to see all @jb55 posts and then see all @HODL and then @No Bullshit Bitcoin or being able to view all followed hashtags consecutively #bitcoin or #gm or #grownostr etc. once they have been viewed, they do not show again in the ‘what’s new’ tab
Hmm, my response was to a different post, seems I clicked reply to the embedded post.
