I wrote [Oracolo](https://github.com/dtonon/oracolo) (see the announcement below) because I was brainstorming about Nostr "long format" and thinking about how to promote it. There seems to be little love for this format, why?
Long posts should have interesting value because the author usually put effort into them, and are produced for a long-term fruition. In the end, blogging was one of the most productive strands on the web, and still holds considerable importance.
But in standard (kind-1) social clients they are rather hidden. I think many people don't even know they exist, they probably intuit something just because they see a particular formatting. This is quite evident if you compare the responses/zaps/reactions of the short notes with the long ones, the latter have far fewer interactions, a fact that I read as less exposure to readers.
Interlude: don't know what this "long format" stuff is?
Check https://habla.news or https://highlighter.com
I think the situation can be largely improved with some adjustments in kind-1 clients:
- Add a tab/section to the user's profile, next to the usual posts/responses, that lists only the long format notes;
- Highlight/pinning recent long notes in the user's profile to give them visibility; the user picture could also have a special mark that alerts about fresh content available;
- In the feed show the preview of long notes with a special design, and allow the user to read them in a separate/immersive view (or just link to njump.me);
- In an appropriate context (es. at the footer of a long note) invite the user to discover long format and post his own content;
- Offer a filtered feed that display only long format notes;
Finally, we should probably also evaluate and agree on a new labeling in clients, because “long notes” is self-explanatory but also a bit confusing next to "plain notes”. Perhaps “articles” might be a better term.
If clients bring more interaction on articles, content creators are naturally incentivized to invest their time in this area, thus increasing the production of in-depth content that may be of interest even to those who are not as involved in social media dynamics.
Memo for kind-1 clients: interoperability is our superpower and currently your are the main entrance to Nostr, so don't be fearful or lazy, please embrace it.
nostr:nevent1qqsrrcl7sfaxd505lyezj7u54tpdg93x0swpcpe0xj5adax5l6xz3yspzamhxue69uhky6t5vdhkjmn9wgh8xmmrd9skctcpr3mhxue69uhkxmm4de68y6t9wvhxv6tpw34xze3wvdhk6tcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0aagyzp
#nostrdesign
This is SO spot on.
No client will disrupt the incumbents by themselves.
For the VAST majority of people:
👉 Twitter is better than Primal.
👉 Substack is better than Highlighter.
👉 Youtube is better than Zapstream.
No matter how good the products we make get (and we'll make them REALLY fucking good), the network effects of each player are incredibly hard to overcome.
Primal would need to get 200x or 500x better than the Twitter product for the experience to clear the famous "10x-better" bar an offering needs to achieve to yeild user change.
(One of) the upper-hands we DO have is interoperability.
That's our secret weapon.
But we'll only realize it's full potential if we fully embrace it and lean REALLY hard on it.
nostr:note1let7sydwfug3ar4re5m2akd0wkfvd3tqdjdg9sdr6329v7mr5dssmxhch9
X is a webpage for people who don’t matter.
This.
Moreover, although I feel a little guilty saying it, interoperability can leverage an easily exploitable human weakness: laziness. It is possible to offer the user what he wants, without asking for any effort to change the context, with essentially seamless integration. But to achieve this, clients must cooperate and fight the depressing culture of walled gardens. Give 10, get 100.
Microblogging apps are not the best place to lean really hard on #interop.
Group Chats are.
Most people don't publish anything publicly, but only to certain in-groups. This is especially true for the most innovative and exciting event kinds Nostr can offer.
I agree, groups are another important missing (under construction) piece
Nostr is better than any of the others in my opinion, by 10X or more on day one. No corporations, no algorithms, no advertising. Nothing the other platforms can do will beat that combination.
The problem is that algorithms "improve" the user experience. Maybe it's just perception, maybe it's unhealthy, but it engaged people's attention whether they like it or not and that's what keeps them there.
And most people don't care about the corporation, they don't relate to them directly so it doesn't really matter.
And most people are consumers through and through. I never realized this in the past because my sales resistance is level 100 and I'm as far from a consumer as it's possible to be. But interacting with normies, their life really revolves around how to get the money to buy the next thing they saw on social media. Whether it's a blatant ad or a "lifestyle influencer", the stuff that makes me cringe in disgust is like cocaine to them. They buy into every latest marketing trend every single time. If it isn't on their social media, they'll go looking somewhere else until they find it
Reminds me of that line from Terminator 2: "We're not going to make it, are we..."
How does Nostr handle large video files? Is the data download to our devices streamed simatanously from multiple relays, similar to Bittorrent? Do relays need to store the entire large video file, or can they choise to store small chunks of videos without storing the whole thing?
Maybe integrate Bittorrent into relays so the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented.
That’s one of the problems with Nostr - large video - either you self host, cross host (YouTube to an unlisted video) or pay nostr.build. Otherwise right now you just don’t get large video.
one other suggestion would be a way to sign up for a “newsletter,” so to speak, with one’s npub such that every new post would get sent to them as a DM.
Not sure how many people would actually sign up, but you could have free and paid subscribers that way.
It would be like an email newsletter that substack has, only without the email.
The next version of highlighter has pretty much exactly this; it has the concept of an inbox where you get the most interesting content from a few people you select, articles, videos, etc
wonder if it would also be worth adding (if you haven’t already) an email option so normies could get newsletters via the old route if they heard about it from someone.
You’d have nostr content creators sending posts to subscribing npubs, but those npubs could tell normies it’s available via email too.
Opensource will win, there is no way around.
I disagree with everything you’re saying.
First I disagree that Twitter is better than Primal
Second I disagree that Primal, Highlighter, and Zapstream are the best nostr has to offer. Nostr relays don’t store videos, so I don’t even have to know what zapstream is to know its big tech.
Third even if what you’re saying is true, who cares about pessimism. Nostr devs will keep improving until we win.
He's into BTC believing in first comer advantage. You are obviously into Monero, believing that "better" will prevail in the end.
What you’re saying is true. But the bigger issue I’m addressing is that I’m trying to have an inclusive culture where we coexist. He’s trying to be exclusive to Bitcoin-only while at the same time bitching about Big Tech’s network effect.
My point: If we all got along, then we can win.
Twitter died a long time ago.
its actually growing under musk, but censorship is still there and probably increasing
If you don't go Premium, it's dead.
and keet.io is already better for some things, and more every week
Yes! X 100
Been wishing for long form to see some love.
Snort has had an articles tab since the early days but I noticed it’s gone now. Don’t remember what happened.
We also have an immersive view in deck but it’s supposed to be in the feed too but was misinterpreted in development :(
Definitely revisiting soon!
https://i.nostr.build/4onO4.png
I couldn't agree more Daniele. 🤝
We are currently working on marking long form content first class citizen on Primal. LFG!
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