Author: Evie, founder of JE Labs Source: X, @0xEvieYang
As a social protocol with a valuation ceiling of 1 billion US dollars in the social track and gathering many first-line investors such as a16z and Paradigm, how is Farcaste developing now? Are ecological applications really playable? What are the innovations in the ecosystem?
With these questions, I recently experienced more than 50 Farcaster ecological applications, and I will share with you:
1. My Farcaster ecological exploration experience
2. Views and imaginations about Web3 Social
3. Exploring the essential data dashboards of the Farcaster ecosystem
Experience in Farcaster ecological exploration
1. My biggest feeling is "interconnection": a set of identities can be used in various clients; although each client has a different focus, the content I pay attention to is also connected, and I feel familiar wherever I go, without having to build an account from scratch.
2. Farcaster is quite open: users can add "action" widgets, and they can click on the widgets next to each post, such as counting how many $DEGEN rewards the post has.
There is also a "Frame" applet that can be inserted, which allows users to directly access various functions and services without leaving the Farcaster client, such as games, minting NFTs, claiming airdrops, subscribing to news, shopping, and voting. Later, you can even add on-chain functions such as one-click Swap. This greatly enhances the scalability of the Farcaster client, making the application gameplay more diverse and the user experience smoother.
3. The tokens of the Farcaster ecosystem are also interoperable, making "consumption" more convenient. For example, $DEGEN can be used in clients such as @perl_xyz @Jamfrens, and $DEGEN can be used for post rewards or the buying and selling of social assets. This is also very good for some clients that have just started and have not yet issued coins. The new clients can have a set of circulating currencies to use first; and these tokens can also, to a certain extent, build ecological consensus.
(Btw, the "Happy Beans" on Farcaster's official client @warpcast_ - $warps are still centralized and not on the chain. The official also said that they will not correspond to future earnings. So, does $DEGEN or other tokens have the opportunity to obtain pricing power in the Farcaster ecosystem? For example, let users form a consensus on "$DEGEN-based".
4. The content is more vertically segmented and the quality is higher: users can choose channels of interest to follow, such as meme, founders, fitness, etc. The average quality of content on Warpcast is higher than that on Twitter, which is related to the quality of the users who joined initially.
For ordinary users, when the platform is just launched, there is no traffic for posting content, and it is difficult to maintain continuous output. Therefore, most of the OG users who joined at the beginning have their own influence. I found that many OG users don't post on Twitter much, but they are very active on Warpcast, including Farcaster's founder @dwr.
Other views on Web3 Social
1. Most users don’t care what is being built, but whether it is easy to use, interesting, and can meet their needs. Even the underlying protocol needs to have its own application end to allow users to experience the underlying value - so the 20 people on the Farcaster team spent more than a year to build the official client Warpcast; @TakoProtocol is building the top-level application @Jamfrens while building social Infra.
2. For Web3 social, decentralization and anti-censorship are one aspect. If you want to comply with Web3 The core of user needs still needs to revolve around transactions - such as @friendtech's mechanism for buying and selling keys; @interfacedapp's content is centered on the on-chain dynamics of the accounts being followed. Users can see what tokens the objects they follow have bought and directly swap them in the app. To put it bluntly, it still needs to allow users to make money and have a wealth-creating effect. During the period when $DEGEN became popular, the number of posts on Farcaster also increased significantly.
3. The combination of social and memecoin, as well as DeFi, will also derive more gameplay. For example, now @alfafrens can pledge a certain user and share its revenue share. In addition, in terms of customer acquisition, it may be possible to directly combine the user's on-chain and off-chain activity to give initial points/airdrops.
4. The channel in the Farcaster client is a good channel for project community building, because it can be combined with incentives to generate UGC, and combined with the Frame applet to have richer gameplay. For example, when $DEGEN was first hyped, users could get airdrop points by posting $DEGEN in the Degen channel; the more interactions a user receives, the more rewards he can give to others; the more popular the post, the more rewards you receive.
5. How open will Farcaster's ecosystem be? As mentioned earlier, Farcaster is an underlying protocol that attracts developers to build on it. I think it is indeed more open and friendly than http://Friend.tech. However, as a link in the ecosystem that can capture relatively more commercial value, the vast majority of traffic and functional innovations are currently concentrated on Farcaster's own Warpcast. In the future, how will Farcaster avoid "monopolizing" traffic and product functions while more vigorously supporting the diversified development of the ecosystem? Regarding this issue, I am quite curious about the team's next strategy.
A data dashboard essential for exploring the Farcaster ecosystem
Farcaster ecosystem projects: https://decaster.xyz
Farcaster overall data: https://farcaster.network
Dune dashboard: https://dune.com/pixelhack/farcaster
meme coin data: https://farcaster.in