The value of social decentralization
The construction of Web2 social applications is now largely mature, and there is a great demand for sticky social applications from users. Still, there are also some pain points of centralized social media networks, where users have limited control over their data and content and are subject to censorship, algorithmic manipulation, and privacy violations. Traditional centralized social media platforms have dominated the market for a long time. However, they still need to address the issues of data and content creators, such as the interference of social media handles or unequal distribution of revenue and lack of control over their content. With the rise of the data economy and decentralized technologies, there is a growing need for a platform that can provide a fair and transparent system for data and content creators to distribute and monetize their content.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend toward remote work and digital content consumption, which has increased the demand for platforms that can connect creators and consumers in a decentralized manner. It is not only pressing but also presents an opportunity to develop a new generation of decentralized social media platforms that can address the needs of the data and creator economy and provide a fairer and more transparent system for content distribution.
Decentralized social networks built on blockchain technology can address these issues by giving users control over their data, providing transparency and immutability, and promoting a more open and free exchange of ideas. Obviously, the decentralized social is a high-potential vertical in Web3. It addresses the growing demand for creator-economy, privacy, ownership, control over contents, and censorship-resistant communication channels, which are important to individuals and communities seeking to protect their rights and publish their content freely online without the interference of centralized authorities. The emergence of web3 technologies provides new possibilities for developing decentralized social platforms to ensure trust, interoperability, and seamless value transfer within a peer-to-peer network.
How to build a social graph in Web3
Decentralized social graphs aim to settle more value than ever before, giving data control to the next billion users on web3. But calculating and analyzing on-chain social data volume is a non-trivial exercise. Raw data is rife with noise and opportunities for misinterpretation. Representing social data in web3 becomes extremely important as the user number increases exponentially.
The question is, how would you design the data structures for a very large social network?
Not considering millions of people?
That is fine if we are not considering a huge social graph that manages massive social data. We can construct a graph by treating each person’s handle NFT as a node and letting an NFT indicate that the two users are friends. To find insight between two people, we start with one person’s NFT, do a simple search, and process the information.
What if the social graph is very large?
With the growth of social graphs and the exponential rise of social data, we cannot rely on primitive processing methods anymore if we want to analyze social networks.
The design goals of decentralized social networks indicate that it is critical to have a common data model that allows representation, exchange, interoperability, transformation, and querying of social network data in web3 in a decentralized manner.
The RDF graph is possible to meet this requirement. Based on the developments of tokenized decentralized social graphs, we propose an RDF-based social data model that fits the above requirements.
RDF, short for Resource Description Framework, is a standard created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for metadata modeling. The RDF, also called the RDF Triple (the triple), stores and expressed information in a sentence-like structure of three: subject-predicate-object, represented by two nodes connected by an edge. For example, Alice knows Bob. This information will be structured as triples Alice-knows-Bob, where the subject in Alice, the predicate, and the object in Bob are known.
Decentralized social graphs with common data models make analysis easier and faster in 1000 times. All RDF-based social graphs use the same standard framework and formal semantics for storing and representing data and a standard querying language. Data sharing between RDF data stores on web3 has simplified thanks to RDF’s syntax. RDF triples follow a standard that allows interoperability among social graphs. This interoperability allows RDF-based graphs to integrate and exchange information with each other. It also allows users to add new nodes and relationships, or even substructures, without the need to rebuild the dataset.
Encode Social relations in Web3
Relation builds an innovative decentralized social graph protocol for encoding relations in Web3. It creates a blockchain-native data layer through Semantic SBTs and a standard data format for developers, providing a trustless, open, and interoperable infrastructure for social interactions. In this protocol, as users interact with the DApp, they will generate massive amounts of data on the blockchain that is standardized and machine-readable RDF data. On a deeper level, users will gain more real ownership and control over all the social data generated, sharing it as they wish and deciding how it is used.
Relation Protocol is building the decentralized social layer for web3, providing chain-native social experiences that facilitate seamless data integration and customizable privacy settings for communities to better coordinate in more open and inclusive community-owned economies with enhanced user sovereignty and network effects.
Chain-native smart contract ecosystem
Relation has raised the EIP 6239 Semantic SBTs to specify the common data model and events. According to the EIP, communities, and individuals can build their social connections in the graph by deploying smart contracts.
Using events as atomic units to integrate new and updated graph data into the global social graph is also a novel approach, making it easier to maintain and update the graph more transparently and tamper-evidently.
Common and flexible data model in graph
Relation integrates the RDF, a flexible and expressive graph data model for describing the relationships between resources, making it ideal for representing social graphs and other complex data structures. Using RDF, the Relation protocol makes integrating data from multiple sources easier and representing it in a consistent and interoperable format. It offers a highly scalable and composable data model for social networks, enabling different applications and smart contracts to interact seamlessly with each other and share data. Thus Relation enables the decentralized social data middle layer for web3; the multi-chain social data is integrated into the global social graph through the RDF. The private module (Private SBTs) for configuring privacy settings is a unique feature that enables users to control content access in different social contexts. The natively on-chain (by Semantic SBTS) or publicly visible storage (on Arweave) for data hosting removes the need for trusted intermediaries, increasing decentralization and security.
Privacy configuration
Relation protocol features socially programmable privacy and identity management, allowing native on-chain data hosting and decentralized access control, giving users more control over their personal data and content. Through innovative Private SBTs, users can customize their privacy settings based on the context of their social relationships and interactions, further enhancing their ability to control who has access to their data and content in different social contexts. This differentiates it from traditional social networking platforms that rely on centralized data storage and monetization through targeted advertising.
Infinite imagination on the protocol
Relation Protocol launched the first pilot application, Relation One, in April 2022. It aims to be the web3 social gateway in emerging social markets.
Relation One bridge the gap between web3 and web2 social identity by allowing users to manage their profile in both ecosystems. It is building of instant messaging based on wallet address allows for web3 native, secure, and private communication between users across platforms. Using token-gated authentication for forming discussion groups also introduces a unique way of building communities with shared interests, promotes the formation of tight-knit communities, and incentivizes community members to contribute and participate in discussions. This helps content creators reach a more engaged and invested audience, leading to more meaningful interactions and greater exposure for their content. Lastly, the decentralized access control feature gives users greater control over the content they publish, ensuring that only those with the appropriate permissions can access it, which can be important for maintaining privacy or restricting access to exclusive content.
With over 200 thousand users linked to over 3 million unique wallet addresses and social handles, it formed over 11 million connections. The application has gamified social features and is achieving exponential growth with built-in social referral mechanics.
Of course, Relation One is only used as one of the social examples. Any developer who wants to build social DApps can do so on the Relation protocol., such as a decentralized dating platform, a decentralized credit loan system, a decentralized content-distribution network, and a decentralized advertisement network. Such as the decentralized wallet Hashkey Me and the Web3 recruitment platform Dejob are already connected to the Relation Protocol to enhance the social aspect of their business. The potential of the Relation Protocol will attract more developers to join the ecosystem to build the Desoc ecosystem.