quotingDecentralized social networks were my main focus during my PhD. After I graduated early last year, my classmates Younes, Shaun (npub1f6k…zhxn) , and I went all in on building Yakihonne. This marks our fourth year exploring decentralized social networks.
note175r…p8qs
For the first three years, we built a well-known decentralized research media platform in Asia. We experimented with decentralized creation, funding, and moderation to make media truly decentralized. From 2020 to early 2023, those were some of our happiest times—joining hackathons, winning grants, and focusing on decentralized media. We managed to achieve decentralized content creation for research communities.
In February 2023, we built a decentralized media client based on Nostr and secured some funding. In the early days of a small team, doing the right things and maintaining funding is crucial. Nostr's early phase, combined with the challenges many decentralized media projects have faced, made securing funding particularly tough.
I really believe in the Chinese saying, "After endless mountains and rivers that leave doubt whether there is a path out, suddenly one encounters the shade of a willow, bright flowers and a lovely village.” 山重水复疑无路，柳岸花明又一村。
At the Bitcoin Global Summit in the US, I met vitorpamplona (npub1ugh…ktzm) , npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s , DerekRoss_ (npub19qh…y3ww) , ROCKSTAR (npub1j8y…vrvg) and others who gave us much encouragement and inspiration. In NV, I was asked if our projects on Nostr were competitors. My belief has always been that we are in a positive sum game—building the ecosystem together and creating growth, rather than being competitors. This is the nature of Nostr and a necessity for the future development of the world. The virtual digital world is vast enough, and we don’t need to cling to zero-sum thinking from the industrial age.
On my way back to Singapore from NV, a series of delays turned a 24-hour journey into 40 hours. Luckily, I still met my PhD supervisor. We had a great conversation about publishing and media through the lens of AI, social computing, advertising, and intelligent philosophy . Over the past 20 years, my supervisor has spent almost half of each year traveling to different countries, promoting the development of AI and complex systems. Now he’s more focused on making sure his students stay healthy.
Over the past two years, I received a few invitations for journal submissions, but I had to delay them due to my busy schedule. Moving forward, I plan to publish our latest research as papers, introducing Nostr and decentralized social networks to more academics, and inviting more researchers to join the Nostr ecosystem.
Right before boarding, I received support from an international academic organization, which really lifted my travel fatigue. Together, we’ll be planning a series of initiatives to engage the academic community in discussions about Nostr.
A big thanks to my team and Rabble (npub14sq…gqkq) for supporting Yakihonne and helping us grow.
Wendy
OD311 Flight
2024-10-09
Wendyding on Nostr: Tested this long note on primal , damus , and YakiHonne . In Damus, trying to tag ...
Tested this long note on primal (npub12vk…pugg) , damus (npub18m7…q955) , and YakiHonne (npub1yzv…rf8q) . In Damus, trying to tag someone is not easy if you haven’t followed them. On Primal, the post button wasn’t working—I’m not sure if it’s related to the long note. Finally, the post was successful on YakiHonne, but there were some issues when tagging people.