"Feeds curates users casts like DJs curate songs for playlists" is the cleanest way to understand what Feeds curation miniapp does, but so what? What's so special about a playlist of casts? Well, let's dive deeper. Feeds is more than just a playlist of casts from folks you follow, it’s an attempt to battle algorithmic bias while building not just the curator but the creators reputation, identity and social capital. But I can just bookmark casts or recast or quotecast, so how are Feeds different? At first glance, they aren't, but dig deeper, Feeds become more than a collection of public casts folks can scroll in a miniapp, they represent endorsements of trust, social proof, and collective taste. And now $pro has monetized and coordinates these actions folks normally do into a value collaboration model.

Folks are no longer consuming on social media, but composing the curator and creators identity in public to curate their audiences attention. Now, who folks follow as opposed to how many folks follow becomes more important if the curator wants to have access to diverse casts. The main feed on Farcaster was never meant to serve everyone, it was tailored to developers and builders first, which is why there are a lot of casts complaining about the home feed now as opposed to a year ago.

Plus, infinite scroll has killed context, as folks rely on the algorithm to sort, rank and then curate the casts it is programmed to show on everyone's home feed. But now, Feeds directly addresses this problem with monetized incentives for human sorting, ranking and then curating casts on the purple app. Feeds is now a map of shared intent, where value collaboration is a revolving door of specific casts that represent curators tastes.

So what? Why does it matter that I can now monetize a playlist of casts? It doesn't to be honest, if Feeds stopped working tomorrow, the algo continues to work, and folks continue to cast. But I like to look through the lens of Locatelli's (2020) research on digital influencers as socio-technical actors (GPT it for the tl;dr). Her research is grounded in actor-network theory and she frames her study around how digital influencers act as nodes within technical and social systems. Which is basically a collaboration of human and non-human actors interacting to shape legitimacy of a system, in this case Web3 innovations or appcoins. Humans are the creators, curators and audience, nonhuman are algo, casts and tokens. Algorithms are the current solution to coordinating these groups because it would be impossible to scale that level of network coordination at scale. But I think that's because the algo treats these actors as individual parts and its main purpose is speed, how fast can I sort, rank and distribute. This is where Feeds steps in, its prime objective is not speed, but quality. Quality defined by human actors or in Feed language, curators. Feeds now bundle what the algo cannot: people, tokens, feeds, reputations and identites under a shared purpose of value collaboration. Folks don’t need to rely solely on the algorithm to decide what they want to see, when Feeds aligns all actors, both human and non-human together through incentivly aligned monetization mechanisms and organizes it in a convenient to use miniapp. Curation now becomes reputation + identity + digital labor = network capital. $TIPN is another great example in the shift to value collaboration for appcoins. The ability to stake and earn $usdc and $tipn for using the protocol improves loyalty and offers a social signal of trust, something Feeds does not have at the moment.

But, regardless, I think Feeds becomes a foundational example for the future of human curation on digital networks. Every curated cast becomes another artifact that represents the curator's identity, reputation and social capital. Feeds is where algorithmic bias ends and curation becomes public consciousness. I'm excited to have my thoughts not just curated by a machine, but by people who value my ideas, my art, my hot takes and then remix them into their own Feeds. If the eyes are the window to someone's soul, then Feeds is a window into someone's heart. Cheesy asf. I know. And if you made it to the end, would love to hear your thoughts.

"Feeds curates users casts like DJs curate songs for playlists" is the cleanest way to understand what Feeds curation miniapp does, but so what? What's so special about a playlist of casts? Well, let's dive deeper. Feeds is more than just a playlist of casts from folks you follow, it’s an attempt to battle algorithmic bias while building not just the curator but the creators reputation, identity and social capital. But I can just bookmark casts or recast or quotecast, so how are Feeds different? At first glance, they aren't, but dig deeper, Feeds become more than a collection of public casts folks can scroll in a miniapp, they represent endorsements of trust, social proof, and collective taste. And now $pro has monetized and coordinates these actions folks normally do into a value collaboration model.

Folks are no longer consuming on social media, but composing the curator and creators identity in public to curate their audiences attention. Now, who folks follow as opposed to how many folks follow becomes more important if the curator wants to have access to diverse casts. The main feed on Farcaster was never meant to serve everyone, it was tailored to developers and builders first, which is why there are a lot of casts complaining about the home feed now as opposed to a year ago.

Plus, infinite scroll has killed context, as folks rely on the algorithm to sort, rank and then curate the casts it is programmed to show on everyone's home feed. But now, Feeds directly addresses this problem with monetized incentives for human sorting, ranking and then curating casts on the purple app. Feeds is now a map of shared intent, where value collaboration is a revolving door of specific casts that represent curators tastes.

So what? Why does it matter that I can now monetize a playlist of casts? It doesn't to be honest, if Feeds stopped working tomorrow, the algo continues to work, and folks continue to cast. But I like to look through the lens of Locatelli's (2020) research on digital influencers as socio-technical actors (GPT it for the tl;dr). Her research is grounded in actor-network theory and she frames her study around how digital influencers act as nodes within technical and social systems. Which is basically a collaboration of human and non-human actors interacting to shape legitimacy of a system, in this case Web3 innovations or appcoins. Humans are the creators, curators and audience, nonhuman are algo, casts and tokens. Algorithms are the current solution to coordinating these groups because it would be impossible to scale that level of network coordination at scale. But I think that's because the algo treats these actors as individual parts and its main purpose is speed, how fast can I sort, rank and distribute. This is where Feeds steps in, its prime objective is not speed, but quality. Quality defined by human actors or in Feed language, curators. Feeds now bundle what the algo cannot: people, tokens, feeds, reputations and identites under a shared purpose of value collaboration. Folks don’t need to rely solely on the algorithm to decide what they want to see, when Feeds aligns all actors, both human and non-human together through incentivly aligned monetization mechanisms and organizes it in a convenient to use miniapp. Curation now becomes reputation + identity + digital labor = network capital. $TIPN is another great example in the shift to value collaboration for appcoins. The ability to stake and earn $usdc and $tipn for using the protocol improves loyalty and offers a social signal of trust, something Feeds does not have at the moment.

But, regardless, I think Feeds becomes a foundational example for the future of human curation on digital networks. Every curated cast becomes another artifact that represents the curator's identity, reputation and social capital. Feeds is where algorithmic bias ends and curation becomes public consciousness. I'm excited to have my thoughts not just curated by a machine, but by people who value my ideas, my art, my hot takes and then remix them into their own Feeds. If the eyes are the window to someone's soul, then Feeds is a window into someone's heart. Cheesy asf. I know. And if you made it to the end, would love to hear your thoughts.