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Hello, gm, gm!
Last week, I announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that I would be canceling my premium subscription, and eventually sunsetting the account in favor of Warpcast. This likely raised some eyebrows from my acquaintances but was expected by those close to me.
Before we go further, did you know we're on Farcaster now? Join our channel! Perks & benefits coming soon!
This is the Farcaster home for The Blockchain Experience podcast community.⚡️ Despite the name, most anything goes in our community channel including culture, food, travel, business, and general technology. https://theblockexp.com/
Warpcast is an app running on a decentralized social media protocol called Farcaster. I probably made things even more confusing, so let me break it down. Most of you reading this article have an X account, a TikTok account, an Instagram account, and/or all of the above. Each one of them operates completely independently, meaning your X followers are different than your TikTok followers than your Instagram followers. If you intended to build an audience for any of them, you had to put a lot of effort into each platform.
Suppose I told you that you could build your following, and that following would always be yours, and carryover on any app you use? That is what the Farcaster social media protocol is. One of the apps running on it is called Warpcast which is functionally very similar to X. Personally, I have built a follower list of about 800 at the time of this writing and follow 200 over the past couple of months. Yesterday, I installed an app called "Jam" which is functionally very similar to Instagram and also runs on the Farcaster protocol.
You want to know what was cool? As soon as I logged in with my Farcaster login credentials to Jam, all my followers I built up on Warpcast carried over, all my messages, all my posts (except only the ones with images showed, of course, to give the Instagram experience), as did the comments to said images.
And that's the Farcaster social media protocol in action. As you can see from the above, the data is built on the Farcaster social media protocol, and I own it, and it carries with me wherever I go. Some apps running on the Farcaster protocol are Warpcast (X), Jam (Instagram), Drakula (TikTok), Farcord (Discord), and there's much more.
The underlying technology is built on the Optimism blockchain technology stack. Your followers, your follows, your messages, are all stored on a peer-to-peer network of nodes. We don't need to get into the technicalities; the key takeaway, again, is that you own your data, and you can take it wherever you want. Build once and lasts forever.
I have multiple grievances against X:
The algorithm. There are way too many landmines limiting your reach whenever you post something on X. Put a link on your post? Its reach will be limited. Mention an X competitor? Your reach will be limited. Say something political? Your reach will be limited. Use the wrong emojis? Yup, you guessed it, reach will be limited. The algorithm is constantly changing, and there's a cat-and-mouse game trying to stay ahead of it. Since Farcaster is decentralized, this is not an issue (though there is some slight nuance here; but for the most part, it is not).
It's not well-built for crypto. When Elon first acquired Twitter (as it was known at the time), there was a lot of excitement around the crypto community the platform would go more crypto-native because of Elon's enthusiasm for meme coins, notably Doge. The truth is, X has gone the other way -- one notable change was the removal of hexagon profile pictures which indicated the picture was an NFT belonging to the user. There's been a lot of speculation about how crypto-focused X will become, but none of that has happened. With Farcaster on the other hand, it's much easier for developers to build crypto-native functionality on the protocol since the protocol itself is based on blockchain. I do not see any reason why the crypto Twitter community should not migrate to Farcaster; it's just so much better equipped for what we, crypto folks, want to do.
I don't own my data. And that brings me to the most important part. On X, I don't own my data. I've had to rebuild my network (10K+ followers on X) from scratch again on Warpcast. Warpcast is an app developed by 2 people. Do I always agree with them? No. If I ever get fed up with Warpcast, I can always install a new app, and so long it runs on the Farcaster protocol, (almost) everything carries over. Not only I don't have to start over, but I own my data. In fact, I'm on several of those apps I mentioned above like Drakula (TikTok) and Jam (Instagram). It was great. I installed them, and I immediately had the same network as before. No cold start.
Should you follow my lead? Probably, but I won't say definitely. There are a few things to consider:
What else do you use X for? If you're using X to engage with people about world events, sports, food, and the like, completely migrating to Farcaster probably doesn't make sense for you (yet). Those kinds of communities do exist on Farcaster, but they're certainly much smaller than X.
Is your tribe on Farcaster yet? Similar to the above -- are the people you frequently interact with on Farcaster? If not, and they're not crypto people, then it might behoove you to split your time between Farcaster and X. However, if your tribe is crypto, and none of you are on Farcaster yet, then you need to get on there now. All of you! Farcaster is functionally superior in every way, and it's not even close. In fact, I would make the bold statement that you are not a true crypto person if you're still fully residing on X and haven't started on Farcaster yet.
How confident do you feel about your ability to rebuild your network? For some, this comes naturally, for some it's daunting. I actually don't think it has much to do with your level of introversion vs. extroversion. I think it has more to do with who you engage and how you engage. Regardless, one core tenet is very true about Farcaster though -- you have to give before you can get. Do not enter the platform trying to extract from it. Make meaningful posts and give thoughtful responses to build up your credibility. It's not too different than any other social media platform, but perhaps more so applicable on the Farcaster protocol since it's still relatively new and small.
So, you might be wondering, what do I do next? The easiest way to start on the Farcaster protocol is probably through Warpcast which is the flagship app (mobile & web) built by the same people who built Farcaster. Once you go through their short registration process, congratulations, you're now sitting on the Farcaster protocol. I know this ending is abrupt, but yes, that's it.
Now get to work on meeting new people, vibing, using channels to discover people with similar interests, and building your new network that you own! Follow me on there, and shoot me a direct cast that you read this article, so we can connect
The future is decentralized, my friends! Until next time...
(Do note that a couple of links in this article do include my referral code)
meta-david
