The New Year, for Neighbourhoods
What we've done and what's to come
Hey, neighbour! 2022 has been intense, bringing global conflict, uneven COVID-19 pandemic recovery, and bearish crypto markets. Nevertheless, it’s brought challenges worth facing; in this way, we hope this year has been kind to you too.
For us, the last 12 months have been about research in socio-technical design patterns, convening with our community, and agile development and prototyping of the Social Sensemaker — a core feature of the Neighbourhoods framework.
So, what’s in store for 2023? With growing awareness of the need for decentralized social media and removing corporate interests from our online group activities, we are optimistic about our specific niche in Web3. Holochain*, the core distributed ledger underlying Neighbourhoods, is in Beta. And, our newly expanded team is poised to deliver a major release early in the year!
Presenting Neighbourhoods Toolkit (Alpha)
Early 2023, you'll see the release of the alpha version of our Toolkit. We're thrilled to present a usable version of the framework we've been working toward since we launched late last year. Features of that toolkit include:
Toolkit 0.0.1: Sensemaker_lite
Implementation of a Holochain DNA that enables groups to add metadata on any entry from any other hApp DNA, and to store and process that metadata into useful insights via community-defined processes.
Toolkit 0.0.1: Community Activation Wizard
The Community Activation Wizard places cultural choices in a configuration file that is used to compile into a neighbourhood. Community activators arrange the flow of resources, rating dimensions, contexts, and scoring computations.
Toolkit 0.0.1: Sensemaker Dashboard
Stakeholders of any given neighbourhood must be able to modify their social space. For example, they might want to adjust the amount of upvotes an item needs in order to be placed into a ‘group favorites’ context or to add timestamps to re-order items based on their staying power in a context. They may also browse, add, and configure additional applets.
Team expansion + “Applet” Developer Onboarding
The run up to the development of our alpha toolkit has involved a steady expansion and reorganization of our core team. We have invited contributors across the Holochain ecosystem to lend their rare HC-dev skills to the Neighbourhoods Toolkit.
We have also begun working with 'satellite’ developers of NH-compatible applets. These initial relationships are enabling us to prepare documentation so that anyone can learn how to build basic Holochain applets that work well with the rest of Neighbourhoods.
Next year we expect to release this documentation, in addition to holding some virtual events to share them, answer questions, and even further broaden our developer community. If you write code, look for announcements from us inviting you to contribute applets!
$NHT Utility Development
With the downturn of the crypto space at large, $NHT has experienced volatility this year. Moreover, we have avoided typical utility development mechanisms (like in-game rewards, debit card integration, and staking) because of the non-ideal dynamics they create, like borrowing and short-selling, and dramatic supply increases when vesting periods end.
Our key focus has been to expand the true number of token holders by seeding a community looking to build and use neighbourhoods. This focus underscores our belief that benefits for token holders will come from the development of $NHT as a settlement utility in the Low Code Marketplace
To this end, we have secured a contract with a leading research-and-build crypto infrastructure team, BlockScience, to begin specifying and modelling core aspects of the economy surrounding $NHT. We expect this work to move from concept to prototype to alpha marketplace over the course of 2023. We’ll keep you informed along the way.
Thanks for your support, and happy holidays 🎉
* If you missed it, check out our interview feature on the Holochain blog.