Will Frames on Farcaster Change The Vibe Of Social Media?

Farcaster has been causing quite the commotion among developers and Web3 evangelists lately. Former Coinbase executive Dan Romero is the founder of Farcaster and has recently secured $30 million from top-tier investors, including a16z and Coinbase. 

Farcaster is a community-created protocol for constructing decentralized social applications.

Developers can utilize Farcaster to construct new, decentralized social networks, enabling the protocol to address the complex challenges of managing user identities and data. Users can establish a new account under their control and register to utilize any of these applications. Users retain full control over their data and identity and can seamlessly transition between applications.

And I know what you're going to say: Another decentralized social media app? How do you think I feel about reporting and growing another channel? But this time, it is proving to be different.

It's a little early to make that call, but this is Farcaster's "Clubhouse moment" when they finally welcome ordinary tech users and erudite folks who can't stop yapping about any and everything. 

The key will be observing how Farcaster handles an influx of token hunters and potentially malicious builders, while still maintaining the well-curated builder vibe.

Here are some key features to consider joining the platform: 

What are Warps?

Warps peacock as currency which unlock different features in the Farcaster ecosystem. It's a bit different from most social platforms. In efforts to prevent bots and spam, there's a level of investment users have to make in order to start a channel for a discussion of sorts and the stark difference of hashtags.  However, there are no fees for joining or posting -- to my knowledge.  

What are Casts? 

When you type a post, there's an option to broad "cast" it out to various channels related to your post. This is a "new" way to look at segmenting and hashtagging but in a more organized layout. For example, I'm following /fashion, which is a channel about fashion. When I go to cast out my content, I will select the fashion channel and all discussions related to that are neatly organized in a separate feed. However, what shows up on my feed are all my fees, with a marker of where it was casted. This is for an on-chain data logic, where builders can target casters of certain channels. 

What are Channels?

You can follow the channels on Farcaster or some channels can be token-gated and made available to an exclusive subset of people. This is where Web3 is activated because these channels can be open to the public or exclusive to people who old various coins. From what I understand, anyone can create a channel with 2,500 WARPS, which is around 25USD. Users have to buy WARPS from their Coinbase wallet, and transact from there. 

What are Frames?

A frame as a distribution channel. The beauty about Farcaster is the decentralization and permissionless aspect of it all. The data can be used to deploy Frames, which in turn is growth hack for anything you want to bring to awareness. 

Getting Started For Normies

Download Warpcast application on your mobile phone. Create an account with your email or Web3 wallet. Record your seed phrase, you know the rules for this, or revisit it in our post Best Web3 Security Practices You Should Remember.

Getting Started For Developers 

The fastest way to get up to speed on the protocol is by watching the video series.

If you want to dig deeper, we also recommend that you:

1. Read the overview for a high-level picture of the problems, goals and design.
2. Review proposals, for historical context behind some of our design decisions.
3. Take a look at Hubble, an implementation of a Farcaster Hub.
4. Review the smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
5. Dive into the specifications to understand the low-level details.

Will Frames on Farcaster Change The Vibe Of Social Media?

As Zenon, Girl of the 21st Century series turns 25 this year, I feel like my passion for tech has truly come full circle. Where will I warp to next? Will you be logging in and using Warpcast app? There's also a ecommerce element, called Warpshop where people are able to sell tangible items. It's basically its own decentralized ecosystem that the Web3 degens are loving, but for normies, it's a bit complicated. Still, mainstream press is picking up steam. With so many social media platforms being created on a monthly basis, look out for more coverage on which ones have staying power in the Violet Verse. 

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