From Mintter to Seed: What has changed?

We launched our first version in September 2023. Since then, we’ve had hundreds of conversations with the community, gathering invaluable feedback to improve our decentralized publishing system—where users genuinely own and control their content. We are rebranding Mintter to Seed Hypermedia. We believe this name better encapsulates what we are trying to achieve together. Thanks to feedback from this community, we have identified critical areas for improvement: better collaboration, clear document ownership, and enhancements to the user interface.

To provide this experience, we needed to re-design our data model and architecture. We've worked hard for the past few months on a bold new iteration of our product. Building a p2p system with collaboration and cryptography is one of the most challenging problems we have ever encountered. The web should be our medium of thinking and cooperation. But today's web is deeply flawed, so we are deeply committed to crafting the tools that will allow this community to save the web!

Multiple Accounts

Introducing multi-account support in Seed Hypermedia adds another layer of flexibility for users. With multi-account support, users can manage different profiles or personas on the system.

This is particularly interesting to manage the relationship between the publisher and author role in the context of a publication.

Subscriptions and Syncing

The change in the synchronization protocol from Mintter to Seed Hypermedia reflects a more controlled, scalable, and private approach. Here's a breakdown of what this change means:

More control for the user: Previously, in Mintter, synchronization involved everything the node encountered on the network, similar to how the Bitcoin mempool works. This meant the user didn’t have granular control over what data was stored on their device, which could lead to overload and complicate data management.

Selective synchronization: Now, Seed Hypermedia has implemented more efficient and personalized synchronization. Instead of syncing everything found on the network, the system only syncs the Sites that the user subscribes to, the material linked by these Sites, and the associated comments. This gives the user greater control over what information gets downloaded and stored on their device, aligning with their specific interests.

Improved scalability and privacy: By synchronizing only what the user has actively chosen to follow or engage with (like Sites and related content), the platform becomes more scalable. Users no longer have to manage large volumes of irrelevant data. Moreover, by limiting the synchronization of personal information, the platform strengthens its privacy features, as users control the data stored locally.

In summary, this new approach makes the system more efficient, private, and easier to manage, allowing users to have full control over what they store on their devices while interacting with the network.

We removed Groups and doubled down on Sites and permissions

The transition from Mintter to Seed Hypermedia represents a shift in focus, particularly in how content and community are structured. Here's a breakdown of the changes:

Removal of Groups: Groups were removed because they were creating confusion among users. Previously, the platform had both Groups and Sites, but the distinction between these two concepts was unclear. Groups were likely seen as separate, collaborative spaces, while Sites were more structured repositories for knowledge.

Focus on Sites: Instead of maintaining two separate concepts (Groups and Sites), Seed Hypermedia decided to focus solely on Sites. A Site is now the central entity and serves as a repository for knowledge. This is an intentional decision to simplify the platform and ensure that everything—whether it's shared knowledge or collaborative interaction—exists within a single, unified framework.

Permission Structure: The move to Sites also means that the permission system has likely been streamlined or enhanced, focusing on how users can interact with and contribute to a Site. Permissions are now more central to managing access and collaboration, rather than having to manage them separately for Groups and Sites.

In essence, by removing Groups and doubling down on Sites, Seed Hypermedia aims to create a clearer, more cohesive user experience. A Site is positioned as both a knowledge base and a space for intellectual collaboration, making the platform more intuitive and efficient. The underlying philosophy is that a knowledge repository is inherently an intellectual community, and thus there’s no need to maintain two separate, potentially confusing concepts.

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