The Convo Space: Decentralizing the Conversation Layer of the Internet

Thanks to Billy Leudtke of Layer 0 Ventures for drafting this article.

The Convo Space is giving Web3 developers an easy way to add comments, content and conversations to their decentralized applications. Now live on Ceramic mainnet, The Convo Space enables content from across applications to be linked to an user’s unique decentralized identity to create a shared, decentralized layer for Web3 conversations. The easy-to-use API abstracts away the complexity of Web3, paving the way for the defragmentation & democratization of the ‘conversation’ layer of the internet.

Check out https://theconvo.space/ and get started today!

Fragmented social context

Today, our conversations are fragmented across applications and platforms. Threads of conversation we have with our friends, family, coworkers and peers flow unconnected across a plethora of mediums such as text message, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Facebook, Instagram and others, and each context of interaction is tied to a different one of our many application-specific digital identities.

These silos destroy our continuity online, forcing us to:

• Rediscover and reconnect with contacts on each new platform
• Carry conversations across platforms, eliminating context
• Choose applications based on access to our social graph, rather than purely for the product itself
• Relinquish control of our data, including the value it generates
• Trust platforms to protect our privacy

Platforms don’t talk, people do. Web3 promises an alternative model, with data, identity and reputation separated from individual applications and easily shared across platforms. This information is always controlled by the users, so they can bring reputation and data along when moving to different applications and interfaces, instead of starting from scratch.

The Convo Space: de-platformed conversations

The Convo Space is a decentralized conversation protocol with data separated from the application/interface, allowing a unified conversation layer that can work across applications and solve the fragmentation issue. Through this separation, conversations can continue to be generated organically on the incumbent platforms, while The Convo Space unifies that content from across platforms to create a cohesive conversation for the user.  

The team’s first product is a commenting solution similar to a decentralized Disqus. The developer product offers three ways to integrate:

1. A 1-line integration that embeds an i-frame for an out-of-the-box comments section that can be added to any website
2. React components to let developers customize their own decentralized comments product
3. APIs to build a fully custom social experience, without having to worry about all the complexities of Web3

Developers can easily leverage any of the above methods to begin building on the decentralized conversation layer of the internet. And because all the data on The Convo Space is associated with users rather than applications, any application can build on the same conversation graph and content.

Built on decentralized content, organized around decentralized identities  

The Convo Space is intended to be fully decentralized, making sure this key social infrastructure is not confined to, or controlled by, any single app or platform. The solution pulls together the latest decentralized technologies to achieve this, including Ceramic, IPFS, Textile, Pinata, and decentralized identifiers (DIDs).

Comments are stored in ThreadsDB databases, built by Textile. This content is made available through Pinata’s IPFS-pinning service and backed up to Filecoin to ensure fully decentralized availability and redundancy.

To complete the solution, the product needed to associate the comment threads with users and give them control of their content. For this, they turned to Ceramic. IDX, the decentralized identity protocol built with Ceramic, gives The Convo Space an easy way to link multiple addresses and disparate digital identities into a single user identity.

This open, unified data network lays the foundation for rich identities that can be used across platforms. IDX also provides an easy way to associate specific comment threads with a user directly. Says Anudit Nagar, founder of The Convo Space:

Ceramic truly allows your data to flow and aggregate across multiple different chains - it's truly a one-stop solution for all your storage and access needs, in a truly decentralized manner. That is really future proof.

The platform lets users aggregate all their social conversations into a single place, under a single identity. This lets developers focus on building new and amazing user experiences and worry less about data management. For users, this means conversational data will never be lost or trapped, locking you into a platform because your contacts and ongoing conversations are there. This bridge between Web2 to Web3 enables users to leverage their existing social communities to create more seamless and flexible experiences.

What’s Next for The Convo Space?

Today’s solution is just the first step towards an unbundled conversation layer for Web3.  The team is actively working on rolling out new features to further improve user engagement and experience. Decentralized governance of the protocol is also in the works, which will allow the community to eventually manage itself and set up standards for content moderation, among other things. The team is also working on a Metamask Snap which will allow conversations to live natively in a Metamask wallet.

The Convo Space is currently onboarding NFT marketplaces, DAO aggregation platforms and others to begin opening the commenting layer of the Web. Follow their progress on Twitter and read more here to learn about adding a social layer to your app.

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