On June 21, 2024, we held a Farcaster Writing Hackathon, what I believe to be the first event of its kind. In this post, I share the concept for the hackathon and how it was organized.
The Concept
What is a writing hackathon and why does it matter?
The purpose for the hackathon was to create a mechanism to bring together thinkers and writers from across the ecosystem to contribute to the Farcaster canon, solve current challenges within the community, and help create Farcaster’s future.
As a venture backed startup, Farcaster (the protocol) & Warpcast (the client) has one job: find product market fit. As founder Dan Romero often says, unless Farcaster grows by several orders of magnitude, it’s just a science experiment. Dan’s strategy for finding PMF has largely been focused on developers. Because Farcaster is an open protocol on a blockchain network, as opposed to a corporate walled garden, it allows literally anyone with an internet connection to build clients, apps, or APIs on top of Farcaster data. If Farcaster were merely trying to mimic the functionality of existing social networks—X, Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, etc.—there would be no reason or incentive for anyone to use it, and it would be dead on arrival. However, the ability for anyone to build anything on top of an open social graph means that the killer app is likely something very different from the social networks we’re familiar with. Accordingly, developers have been getting a lot of love on Farcaster: there have been hackathons, grants, developer calls, etc.
One of the reasons I love Farcaster so much is the strong developer culture. Not a week goes by without a developer somewhere in the world building and launching something new on top of Farcaster - a new app, client, API, frame, dashboard. The best part is it’s all done permissionlessly - the developers have no formal relationship with the core Farcaster team. There is an open invitation for anyone to come and build.
Because of Farcaster’s desire to find PMF through developer creativity, developers have had outsized influence over the Farcaster roadmap. The easiest way to get Dan & Varun’s attention is to build on Farcaster. CTO & cofounder Varun hosts bi-weekly calls for developers and encourages developers to contribute to the protocol through Farcaster Improvement Proposals or FIPs.
This is all to say, developers are treated like royalty on Farcaster. With a background in engineering, I love to see it! Developers deserve their elevated status.
However, I’ve observed other types of builders who are just as passionate about Farcaster’s success. This hackathon is for one such class of builders—the writers.
Jesse Pollak, founder of Base, has said, “Writers and editors are builders too.” Colin Armstrong, founder of Paragraph, added that writers and editors are builders of ideas, knowledge, truth, and community. Steve Jobs once said, “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.” Mario Gabriele, founder of The Generalist, launched a VC fund on the promise of narrative power.
Farcaster has not yet found product market fit. Success is not guaranteed. All early users have a unique opportunity to make an impact and help create the future we want. Yes, developers have had significant influence and opportunities to make an impact, but writers are builders too. The idea for the hackathon was to give voice to the writers.
The Writing Hackathon was imagined as a way to bring writers together to publish a ton of Farcaster content en masse, leveraging Onchain Summer and network effects to create a PR blitz for Farcaster.
Writing Hackathon Structure
How It Works
The set up for this first writing hackathon is fairly simple. We created two tracks: one in person in NYC, and one for remote folks using Gather. We provided 4 topics/themes for people to choose from, and people could participate as individuals or groups. The actual hackathon event was Friday, June 21, which gave people an opportunity to come together, share ideas, and meet new people. The deadline for publishing was set to be one week later, on Friday, June 28.
There were 2 simple rules people must follow:
Everyone ships (publishes)
Must be onchain
Topics & Themes
Farcaster Tutorials
Practical “how to” guides for any audience or any topic. Reach new users, new developers, new communities, etc. Make onboarding easier. Make building on Farcaster easier.
Reaching Non-Farcaster Audience
Essays to reach new users as well as companies and brands.
The Future of…
This one is for the big thinkers. Imagine Farcaster in 10, 25, or 50 years from now. What does it look like and why does it matter?
Why I love Farcaster
Personal essays about what you personally love about Farcaster or why you are here
Who was involved
This first writing hackathon was organized by a small team of volunteers and supporters:
Adrienne (me) and YB were the core organizers and ran the IRL track
Ted (not lasso) and Nounish Prof organized and ran the virtual/URL track
Variant, Base and Paragraph partnered with us and provided office space, tons of food, and will be helping with distribution.
There were about 20 people who RSVP'ed for the NYC IRL track and more than 50 in the URL track. Thank you to all the writers who leaned into the first hackathon and are making it special.
Next Steps
After the submission deadline, everyone is encouraged to post and share their work as widely as possible. The hackathon organizers will also be sharing and promoting select essays throughout the summer. Select essays will also be consolidated into a digital and physical booklet.
There is already talk about holding writing hackathons in the future on regular intervals. Follow /writinghackathon for updates.
"The best way to make a better future is to imagine it and then write it down"
Subscribe to adriennetenger to receive new posts directly to your inbox.
Like many others I saw this viral thread from a long-time user lamenting the destruction of Twitter as it as morphed into “X.” I owe Twitter a lot in terms of connections and my career but it has become a truly unpleasant place to spend time and I doubt I would’ve had the same process of discovery again if I was starting out as a young person there. There needs to be a replacement and I don’t think it’d be hard for Warpcaster to become one. Perhaps I’m a little biased because I’ve already started using it and enjoying it but this is really the chance to start pitching the platform as an alternative for people who want to recreate the magic of what Twitter was before it become a optimization machine with an internal culture verging on a neo-Nazi rally.
@downshift.eth has pledged 100% of their $DEGEN allowance to sponsor Farcaster creators through @microsub! You were nominated by @downshift.eth. microsub will be opening to new sponsors and nominees soon. 59 $DEGEN
So many of us feel the same! One of my motivations for organizing the farcaster /writinghackathon was to create a ton of Farcaster content we can share on X as invitations to check this place out. Still have to go thru all the submissions and start sharing them… More info if interested: https://paragraph.xyz/@adrienne/farcaster-writing-hackathon
@visakanv also just published a thread implying all his friends are leaving: https://x.com/visakanv/status/1811933176115114010
Now that Warpcast exists I’m fine if Twitter dies
curious, how did you hear about Farcaster yourself for the first time? Did it take you a long time to actually start using Warpcast?
Friend invited. Never even heard of it before that even though I’m into crypto
Murtaza and I spoke 10 days ago when I mentioned Farcaster/Warpcast to him.. He was casting just a few hours later :) https://warpcast.com/geoffgolberg/0x927d27a7
Give us the playbook to entice people onto the platform
You should get a finders fee for this one. Bagged a marlin.
From at @dwr.eth on /thenounsquare back when we used to book guests. Back then the invite code was Nouns via twitter DM. Full stop. @ccarella.eth was at the root of that connection so ultimately he is to blame. https://www.youtube.com/live/mC-zcR9g3oA?si=Gc6wpSdJKd_LXpie FID4567
This reply showed as a cast for me which is why I randomly responded.
cc @tszzl
It’s interesting that as “AI experts” flocked to Twitter - the SNR really got out of wack. I’ve been scanning it more the past few days and it’s not very good for what I used to utilize it for (finding new protocols, learning). I migrated to Farcaster in Dec 2023 and haven’t looked back
it's *farpcaster actually
who else LOVES that new twitter feature where the millisecond your video stops playing you're blasted with another one that's completely unrelated (it's obvious that every move that's been made after elmo takeover is to improve (useless) metrics and not make the experience better for the user.
yeah he's trying to make it tiktok. he really destroyed it
)
144 $DEGEN
Check out @adrienne's latest blog post on the first-ever Farcaster Writing Hackathon! Learn how it brought together writers to contribute to Farcaster’s future, solve community challenges, and publish impactful content. Dive into the details of the event and its inspiring outcomes.