Junto: A New Look At Social Media

I’ve had some interesting chats with other Steemians about social media platforms and spaces to share creative output. At the same time, development of various mediums and dApps on our blockchain seem to be maturing and expanding.

In that vein, I’d like to share with those interested in this sort of thing something that’s happening elsewhere, on the Holochain.

It’s a whole new way of doing social media, and one that I think is pretty awesome, and I wonder if this aspect of Steem couldn’t borrow some ideas on how to approach this aspect of the blockchain.

It’s called Junto.

In designing this hApp (an hApp is basically a dApp that runs on the Holochain) the creators wanted to do something different rather than just another Fakebook/Instascam/blogging platform. So they focussed on several key factors:

• Agency
• Accountability
• Authenticity
• Transparency
• Simplicity

There are no vanity metrics (how many followers or likes), and feeds are completely designed by the user, not by algorithms or AI. There are also no advertisements.

There is also a choice as to what kind of format your ‘expression’ will take:

• Longform
• Shortform
• Bullet
• Photo
• Video
• Music
• Events

An expression is tagged as usual, creating channels of interests one can browse and view.

But here’s where I think it gets interesting. Who you choose to share your ‘expression’ with is divided into three distinct layers.

The Collective

This is basically viewed by anyone, a completely public stream. It is divided into “collective” (completely public) and “selective” (specific individuals one follows). You can search channels in each of these streams, and choose where you want your ‘expression’ to be posted.

The Pack

This is where it gets interesting. It’s kind of like sharing amongst people in a community, and my interpretation is it’s kinda like sharing a post in a community Discord server. There is something that draws people together into a ‘pack’ that they have in common, and thus will be interested in the ‘expressions’ that they share amongst each other. I’m assuming you can be in multiple ‘packs’, and that you can search channels within this stream.

The Den

This was another aspect I find really interesting and enticing. This is basically completely private, where only you can see. It’s kind of like being able to create a diary or a journal, but in the formats of posts as listed above. So it can be images, videos, or movies — not just text.

As an avid journaller and blogger, this last feature is the shit!! I love the idea of being able to do this.

If you want more details on Junto, then head over to their JuntoLove blog to read more.

What’s even more impressive is that they were able to raise over $100,000 in just short 30-day Kickstarter campaign without running any ads! So there is already a lot of good vibes about this open-source project. I’ve just found out that they’ve started a further crowd-funding campaign on Indigogo InDemand with some really cool early-adopter perks available.

They’re also looking for engineers to help build it out… so if anyone reading this is interested, check out the details here. It would be great if some Steem-savvy developers were involved, as it would be great to have the ability to integrate / syndicate posts from one platform to the other.

Relevance to Steem?

OK, so why am I sharing this here? Don’t we have our own dApps and platforms and blockchain?

Well, yeah we do. However there are plenty of folk who post their work on Wordpress, Medium, Whaleshares, and other places who may find Junto also worst exploring.

Plus, as Steemit (the social media dApp) re-invents itself, perhaps it could look at the way Junto has approached its design. Everyone hates the ‘trending’ feed on Steemit (well, everyone I read anyway) — maybe there is something that could inspire a different approach.

I also really like the way we can have different styles of content, all which will look differently depending on whether it’s a photo, a blog, or whatever…. this is another of the critiques of Steemit that I think are valid, and why I’ve been interested in dApps like Appics (although, they’re going to eventually move off Steem) and Steepshot for photos, Dtube for videos, DSound for audio, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, it’s worth a look anyway. Maybe secure your username by contributing to the Indigogo campaign and see for yourself whether this could be something you’re interested in.

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