Web1 focused on creating a database of information and linking related pieces of information. Hyperlinks are the canonical example of linking one site or piece of information within or to another. With the advent of web2 came social networks and ways to architect connections based on relationships – social graphs like Facebook – and common interests graphs like Reddit.

And while social graphs and interest graphs were effective at connecting people, Web3 finally provides a way to connect individuals based on another defining human characteristic: what we own and value. 

Examining The Types Value Graphs Social and interest graphs are just two types of “value graphs” - representations of how valuable information is connected throughout a network.

There are a variety of types of value graphs including:

Social Graph - who you know and how you know them

Interest Graph - the topics or ideas that someone believes are interesting

Knowledge Graph - showcases the connections between ideas, people, or things

Location Graph - where you physically are or have been

Experience/activity Graph - what you’ve done (e.g. jobs, completed activities)

Ownership Graph - what you own and value

The early social networks mostly focused on building social protocols or membership platforms where they specialized on aggregating certain types of value graphs:

Social graphs - Facebook and Instagram

Interest graphs - Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter

Social & Experience graphs - Linkedin

Knowledge/search graphs - Google, Yahoo

The successful social networks eventually aggregated all of these value graphs – location, social, etc. And now, today’s social platforms like Twitter and Facebook categorize and aggregate all types of value graphs to provide the most targeted, individual experience.

The Newest Value Graph: Ownership Graphs Every blockchain is inherently a socio-economic graph that maps economic and social connections between digital objects and entities - hence blockchain networks provide a global ownership graph.

And similarly to how social networks first competed on types of relationships - social networks for college students (e.g. Facebook) and interest graphs for not safe for work content (e.g. Reddit /nsfw) – early web3 social networks are competing for how to showcase the newest type of value graph - ownership.

In web3, ownership has a variety of immediate representations:

Reference membership to a NFT community

Showcase involvement or participation in a DAO

Verifying status, past ownership, or patronage

Connecting people and creating communities based on patronage and ownership

Verify contributions (e.g. airdrops for Gitcoin grant participants)

Showcasing more accurate experiential and activity participation showing when an action was taken

One particular area of excitement when it comes to ownership graphs is web3 social. As web3 social networks continue to grow, they’ll leverage ownership graphs in unique ways and combine them with existing interest and social graphs to create net-new social networks with both skeuomorphic emergent behaviors.

Ownership – what we choose to own – is deeply representative of our core values. The web has always been missing ways to transfer value, and blockchain networks provide not only a way to showcase this mesh of ownership but provide a means to this ownership graph with other types of value graphs.

Web1 focused on creating a database of information and linking related pieces of information. Hyperlinks are the canonical example of linking one site or piece of information within or to another. With the advent of web2 came social networks and ways to architect connections based on relationships – social graphs like Facebook – and common interests graphs like Reddit.

And while social graphs and interest graphs were effective at connecting people, Web3 finally provides a way to connect individuals based on another defining human characteristic: what we own and value. 

Examining The Types Value Graphs Social and interest graphs are just two types of “value graphs” - representations of how valuable information is connected throughout a network.

There are a variety of types of value graphs including:

Social Graph - who you know and how you know them

Interest Graph - the topics or ideas that someone believes are interesting

Knowledge Graph - showcases the connections between ideas, people, or things

Location Graph - where you physically are or have been

Experience/activity Graph - what you’ve done (e.g. jobs, completed activities)

Ownership Graph - what you own and value

The early social networks mostly focused on building social protocols or membership platforms where they specialized on aggregating certain types of value graphs:

Social graphs - Facebook and Instagram

Interest graphs - Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter

Social & Experience graphs - Linkedin

Knowledge/search graphs - Google, Yahoo

The successful social networks eventually aggregated all of these value graphs – location, social, etc. And now, today’s social platforms like Twitter and Facebook categorize and aggregate all types of value graphs to provide the most targeted, individual experience.

The Newest Value Graph: Ownership Graphs Every blockchain is inherently a socio-economic graph that maps economic and social connections between digital objects and entities - hence blockchain networks provide a global ownership graph.

And similarly to how social networks first competed on types of relationships - social networks for college students (e.g. Facebook) and interest graphs for not safe for work content (e.g. Reddit /nsfw) – early web3 social networks are competing for how to showcase the newest type of value graph - ownership.

In web3, ownership has a variety of immediate representations:

Reference membership to a NFT community

Showcase involvement or participation in a DAO

Verifying status, past ownership, or patronage

Connecting people and creating communities based on patronage and ownership

Verify contributions (e.g. airdrops for Gitcoin grant participants)

Showcasing more accurate experiential and activity participation showing when an action was taken

One particular area of excitement when it comes to ownership graphs is web3 social. As web3 social networks continue to grow, they’ll leverage ownership graphs in unique ways and combine them with existing interest and social graphs to create net-new social networks with both skeuomorphic emergent behaviors.

Ownership – what we choose to own – is deeply representative of our core values. The web has always been missing ways to transfer value, and blockchain networks provide not only a way to showcase this mesh of ownership but provide a means to this ownership graph with other types of value graphs.