HOOH: A social network of new age on NEAR

NEAR Foundation has awarded a grant to HOOH to introduce a new social network in the NEAR ecosystem.

HOOH is now live and available on Google Play and Apple App store.

Different from most existing Web3 social products that focus on aggregating and then distributing “personal information scattered all over the chain”, HOOH is working from the perspective of “real user experience” to build a community with continuous user growth and high stickiness.

We are aware that this is not easy. HOOH needs to face a series of inescapable critical challenges: Why should users switch from a Web2 social platform with “good enough user experience” to a Web3 social network? What is the former cannot, and the latter can? Is it really meaningful and valuable to do this?

Problems Web 3 Social network faces

Twitter gets people tweeting by “free speech (maybe?)”. Instagram makes people socialize through “visual resonance”. TikTok attracts users for “dynamic life”. LinkedIn generates social relations through “career and workplace”. Obviously, ‘social relations’ are not equivalent to simple “connections”, but stem from the instinctive desire of communication by universal interests and various cultures. “Connection” is the “result” and “universal interests and cultural communication” is the “cause”.

Currently, the product positioning of many Web3 social products is in search of building a full social graph for each user with on-chain data, which at the same time, provides various forms for connecting with others and with different content. On top of it, these products are trying to monetize, or “tokenize” in web 3 words, the processes and relationships involved in. In the context of the grand narrative of the Open Web, this is undoubtedly the right choice; However, the “right choice” does not solve the problem of the lack of “universal interests and cultural communication” as the base of online social relations. Topics and themes are always about “Crypto”, which is unable to resonate more with real life. Meanwhile, it also lacks a mechanism that could encourage and inspire diverse content creation. These have become the biggest bottlenecks for user growth, and they have set obstacles to break out the circle and maintain user stickiness.

Solutions from HOOH

HOOH guides users through the creation and dissemination of meme-like contents to generate meaningful and comprehensive social relationships. It is one of the most likely forms of social product in the new age.

We are so certain because “meme” is a typical “decentralized” cultural form, and one of the most mainstream expressions on the Internet today. It is not as simple as expressing a “punchline” or “emoji”, “meme” is a dynamic process that includes expression, combination, derivation, and circulation of ideas among individuals, and continues to emerge new ideas and new cultures over and over.

An image illustrates an idea. A piece of text also states an idea. When these two are combined together, a new idea will emerge — — this is the “evolution” of memes. And if more images, texts, audios, and even videos are all together to combine, derivate, circulate, following a simple rule, will constitute a “complex system”, which is decentralized and full of vigor.

Based on the above characteristics of memes, Web3 is the ideal soil for it to grow and prosper. And countless NFTs that are “eager to increase liquidity” are the best components of this world. The CC0 agreement and the royalty system constitute the principle of its economic system, and the inexhaustible human desire to express and share is the driving force behind the development of the entire HOOH social network.

Product Design of HOOH

1. UGC, derivatives from CC0 agreement and NFT

HOOH provides fantastic tools for easy creation with sleek processes, and it has been proved by millions of users. You only need to enter a piece of text, and the system will automatically recommend to you a group of NFT templates related to the meaning or mood of your content, by choosing one of them, it will result in a new “meme” that is more interesting and vivid.

NFT owners can convert their NFTs from any chain to be HOOH’s NFT templates for countless other users to use. The benefits are obvious:

For NFT owners:

Not only will they continue to receive royalties from this process, but more importantly, the viral spread of NFT Templates by many users will help the original NFT to “break the circle” smoothly and gain more attention and consensus.

Meanwhile, “NFT Template” as a derivative asset of NFT, and the open and transparent “NFT Template uses and influence revenue generated” will provide a more intuitive reference for the pricing of the original NFT, which will also effectively promote the liquidity and value of the NFT market as a whole.

For ordinary users:

Don’t have any NFTs? Lack of creativity? Not a KOL? Not even a Web3 native? Don’t worry, there are still plenty of opportunities in HOOH! Once you have an idea, you just need to write them down in a piece of text, choose an image from automatic recommendations of countless NFT templates, “evolve” into a more expressive meme, spread widely, gain attention, and it will generate “influence revenue” by the smart contract allocating to you and the template holder.

​​We have put a lot of energy into thinking about how to attract more ordinary users to enter a web 3 social network. We have designed some new ways for different users to explore HOOH. For example, we encourage users who are not confident to express themselves to play the role of “curators”. They could organize curations based on other people’s works and NFTs under new narratives or themes, and share the incentives from influence with creators and NFT owners. Also, there will be an AI generator implemented in HOOH to help more users to convey their ideas with a form of image.

2. Social Pin, redefining social relationships

“Scarcity” creates value, and so do social relations. For instance, I follow a KOL on social media, and he doesn’t follow me. Obviously, this “one-way follow” is not rare, but if he also follows me, then our “mutual follow” will have Scarcity. Even if the other party is not a KOL, “mutual follow” represents connection, which obviously requires deeper mutual recognition than “unilateral follow”, so this kind of social relations can be regarded as more valuable.

In HOOH, there will be a type of NFT representing the scarcity of relationships, named Social Pin. While sign-up each user needs to set a unique Social PIN first. When users follow each other, their Social Pins will be automatically triggered and exchanged to each other. It is also a transferable asset. Users can create new ones repetitively in stages of their influence levels to control the scarcity of some of their own Social Pins, and it could be used to distinguish fans levels and management rights.

3. Hermmon, redefining social identity

Under the current definition of SBT (Soulbound Token), it represents a certain experience and reputation of an individual, and it is not transferable, so certain privileges can be redeemed. Whereas human experience is constantly changing, so are influence and reputation in the virtual world. We can’t expect this “static” SBT to represent long lasting value.

In HOOH, we create a “live’’ SBT for each user, Hermmon. As in the real world, kids would grow taller if they consume more milk, get stronger if they exercise more, and earn a bachelor’s hat if they study hard. Hermmon is the avatar in the virtual world. The data generated by behaviors, reputation accumulated, the achievements through community activities, and all other meaningful data will promote a continuous “evolution” accordingly and “random mutation” in appearance of Hermmon. As SBT, Hermmon is non-transferable, which determines the credibility of the virtual identity, but there will be specific components and props on Hermmon that are able to circulate (such as a hat from a commercial raffle).

Each user’s behavior is unique, plus each decision made will affect Hermmon’s growth path developing into different “skill tree”, which will also create a unique social identity for each user, as well as the possibility of richer interactions with each other, which further reveals more significant and meaningful information behind this SBT.

HOOH is not an ordinary SocialFi, nor an ordinary NFT marketplace. It creates abundant scenarios to build social relations through NFTs, and it will continue to evolve and be reinvented by users.

In 2019, we designed and operated a UGC community that has reached 4 million users from scratch, and gradually tried to implement the Web3 concept. In 2021, we had the first cooperation with NEAR, and created more than 100,000 NEAR wallet user registrations within 6 months. This process helped us accumulate first-hand user insights and development experience，and most importantly, found Market Product Fit. At the same time, NEAR’s advanced programming thinking , security and high availability, have provided us more reason to believe that HOOH will develop rapidly as planned.

Due to space limitations, for more information about HOOH and App download, please visit the official website: https://www.hooh.zone

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