Nomland : an open-source social protocol made for sharing.

Nomland is an open-source social protocol made for sharing. We want to connect content creators, content consumers and communities, mapping the social landscape and redefining content distribution. We aim to disrupt the prevailing content distribution dominance, fostering a more extensive content repository on the blockchain. It aims to fuse together the dual puzzle pieces in web3 social: the creator economy and social interactions.

Sharing and creators economy

Web3 is a value-centric internet, and we aim to imbue the intrinsic act of "sharing" with value. Our ambition is to delineate the act of social sharing through protocols, transforming it from a unidirectional action into a means for individuals to accumulate reputation and even wealth. We believe this shift will alter the conventional paradigm of online social interactions. By amplifying the significance of ‘sharing’ and returning the rights to distribute information to users, we wish to match the quality content with the right individuals and deliver value to individuals.

How does social interaction capture commercial value?

Currently, web2 platforms and influencers can only generate profits through traffic-based advertisements or by directly selling or sponsoring products. We view this method of revenue generation as indirect and inefficient. The human process of social interaction is not about consumption or being compelled to watch advertisements; rather, it stems from an innate need for social connection. The act of socializing itself holds inherent value, as humans exchange information, share viewpoints, receive feedback, inspire one another, and engage in mutual learning through social interactions.

In the future, our aim is to enable communities’ everyday discussions to be documented. We can share our perspectives on an article and engage in discussions within communities and among friends who share common interests. We can also contribute research findings within the digital nomad community, (eg. insights into obtaining a digital nomad visa, and sharing experiences of living as a digital nomad in Lisbon) Or we can even exchange our experiences of using a new vacuum cleaner or find joy in sharing information about DIY mechanical keyboards. These daily information exchanges hold inherent interest, and therein lies the flow of value within communities. Our service aims to become the waterwheel regulating and being powered by this flow of information and value within and between communities.

Build to serve the communities

As web3 needs a product that can involve web2 consumers, and our approach to this problem is to collaborate with communities to construct and test this protocol. We aim to develop diverse modules that originate from the community and cater to their specific needs. The protocol will capture interactions within the community, regardless of where they occur—on-chain or off-chain, on platforms like Twitter, Telegram groups, Discord, and more. Our intention is not to alter people's existing social habits and environments, just to augment them. Users won't need to learn new concepts like decentralization, web3, or blockchain to experience the benefits that blockchain technology brings.

The demonstration dAPP ‘CoLib’: a community content-library

We created a demonstration application to showcase how the Nomland protocol can be utilized by the community. As our first dAPP building on Nomland, CoLib enables community members to curate content from all across the Discord community, categorize that content by topic, and add personalized recommendations and tags. Community members can comment and engage in discussion under different user curations, which are also saved on chains. Through CoLib, we aim to empower individual content creators, curators, and the community, to help them to build social connections and reputations. We value the community as a significant place for discussion and gathering, so the community will be involved in the value distribution. This will enable us to explore future business models. Currently, CoLib is undergoing MVP stage.

Everything can be curated

In addition to article curation, we are actively researching other curatorial scenarios. Whether it's podcasts, music playlists, video links, commodities, products, brands, events, gigs, or exhibitions, we believe these can serve as excellent scenarios for utilizing sharing protocols. After launching CoLib, we look forward to enabling everyone to build their own customized space catering to their individual needs using our service.

Future plans

We don’t plan to receive investment for this protocol, instead, our focus is on receiving donations in the future. We will use a web3 approach to document various contributions, whether they come from builders, donors, curators, or creators, to encourage contributions to the project and the community. Nomland protocol is community-based and will be shared and governed by contributors in the future.

We require these funds to foster additional partnerships with creators and communities. Furthermore, these funds will be used to support builders creating a wider range of dApp applications within our protocol's ecosystem. The protocol will release after we officially launch our example app, Co-lib.

Our team and our story - from dAgora to Nomland

We formed the team within a community called ‘dDAO‘. Not only we are co-workers working on a project, but we are also friends that have mutual goals. Drawing inspiration from the community's inherent needs of co-creation, we conceived and developed the dAgora(Cori bot), facilitating discussions and collaborative efforts within the digital communities. It is in active use within the TPDAO community, a web3 project research and co-creation platform. Furthermore, it finds application in Zuzalu, a pop-up city community, as well as Uncommons, a crypto salon dedicated to the study of public goods.

dAgora has solidified our belief in the concept of product-community fit, yet it has also made us realize that the current user base within the web3 sphere is insufficient to fully support complicated scenarios, thus we are waiting for the industry to grow. As a result, we are actively exploring new scenarios with lower barriers and broader user appeal, capable of achieving mass adoption. The outcome is Nomland, the social protocol designed to serve diverse communities.