Decentralized Social Networking: Open Graph, Farcaster's Plugin Tool Frames
#597
GM,
This week, the newborn has graduated from the postpartum center, and I have officially entered the sleepless hell of feeding every three hours. Thanks to the understanding of the members, I managed to reduce to one article during this time. If taking care of a newborn isn't as difficult as imagined, Blocktrend will resume publishing twice a week. Because after switching to once a week, I found it more challenging to come up with topics, and strangely, it feels more comfortable to write when I do. This situation was somewhat unexpected.
Additionally, several members have been inquiring about the progress of RetroPGF1, worried about missing the time to claim the OP airdrop. This year's airdrop will start later because Optimism will not be distributing OP subsidies all at once; instead, it will adopt a "hourglass-style cash flow2" distributed over three months. I expect to receive the full amount in June and then airdrop the OP subsidies received by Blocktrend to all paying members at once. Thank you for your patience.
Finally, this year's ETH Taipei event will be held at the Nan Kang Bottle Cap Factory this week. If you haven't purchased a ticket yet, feel free to use the Blocktrend discount code "BLOCKTREND" to get a 35% discount. Now, onto the main topic. This article attempts to discuss a broader theme - decentralized social networking.
Ideal Social Networks
What constitutes an ideal social network? In fact, people have long had a consensus on this. However, even the originally most ideal companies eventually went astray. Recently, I came across Mark Zuckerberg's keynote at the 2010 Facebook Developer Conference (F8). Fourteen years later, his proposal of the Open Graph Protocol still remains quite inspiring.
The goal of the Open Graph Protocol is to connect social networks and content networks. Initially, everyone registered on Facebook just to "steal crops" from their friends' happy farms, but unwittingly, they built a digital social network for Facebook. To enrich this network, Zuckerberg called for "making the entire internet your social network" in 2010, aiming to introduce richer data through the Open Graph Protocol:
The Open Graph Protocol is human-centered, re-establishing connections between people and things. For example, when people review restaurants on Yelp, listen to music on Pandora, or read news on CNN, these are isolated content networks. Facebook, through the Open Graph Protocol, links social networks with content networks. Consequently, these services can inform users about which restaurants their friends also like, which songs they often listen to, and which news stories they are currently interested in. Meanwhile, friends can keep track of your recent updates through your Facebook profile page.
Many may have encountered the Facebook "like" button on a brand's official website. When clicked, Facebook automatically posts for you, announcing to the world that you "liked" a certain piece of content. This mechanism of "standardizing" user behavior into a post is the Open Graph Protocol. Although everyone quickly adjusts their privacy settings to avoid embarrassment, it must be said that the Open Graph Protocol is quite useful. Brands can inform consumers about which products their friends also like, users can find like-minded individuals, and Facebook continues to collect user preference data.
People generally agree that Zuckerberg's proposal of the Open Graph Protocol was a good idea — as long as it wasn't dominated by Facebook. Back when Zuckerberg passionately described the future vision of the internet, he was doused with cold water by the tech media TechCrunch. The article "Facebook's Open Graph: It Depends on Your Definition of 'Open'" pointed out that the Open Graph Protocol was actually a form of "enclosure." Facebook's Open Graph was not the bidirectional openness that people idealized; rather, it was a one-way openness for global websites to integrate with Facebook. Once the data flowed into Facebook, it disappeared into a black hole and didn't come out again.
Chris Dixon, then in the midst of entrepreneurship as the head of a16z Crypto, once established the bidirectional OpenLike button to counter Facebook's "like" button. However, given that Facebook already had 500 million users, OpenLike was simply not a match. The Open Graph Protocol laid the foundation for Facebook's precise ad targeting business in the future. Yet, even after 14 years, users and brands are still struggling with modifications to Facebook's algorithms.
If Zuckerberg had proposed a true bidirectional, portable "Open Graph" back then, one that people could share with X, Weibo, Plurk, or even individuals, perhaps the landscape of social networks would be different now. This is what Web3 refers to as decentralized social networking, and it's the product that the protagonist of this article, Farcaster, is currently developing.
Farcaster's Innovation
Farcaster was founded in 2020. According to its introduction:
Farcaster is a fully decentralized social network built on Ethereum. It's similar to public social networks like Twitter and Reddit. Users can create profiles, post content, and follow others. They have personal accounts, social graphs, and can freely move between different applications.
Farcaster's value proposition is quite similar3 to the Lens Protocol introduced by Blocktrend. People need to use the browser (Warpcast) to read content on Farcaster. However, decentralization alone isn't enough. If Farcaster were just another decentralized social network, I wouldn't specifically write about it. The reason for discussing Farcaster is because it recently launched a new feature — Frames — which has inspired a fresh imagination for decentralized social networking. There are several characters involved here, and I've illustrated their relationships in the diagram below, corresponding to the browsers most familiar to everyone.
The name "Frames" is derived from HTML's iframe, and its functionality is quite similar. When you need to fill out a questionnaire on a website, there are usually two scenarios. One is clicking a link to navigate to a webpage to fill it out, and the other is embedding the questionnaire directly within the website, eliminating the need for navigation. The latter function of embedding external questionnaires into websites is achieved using iframes. The recent introduction of Frames by Farcaster brings iframes to social platforms, allowing users to complete tasks without navigating away.
At this point, you might not see what's so impressive about Frames. However, the potential of Frames becomes evident when you can play "Doom" on Farcaster. Allowing developers to build applications on a social platform, akin to the rise of "Happy Ranch" on Facebook, is the formula for success. The difference is that Farcaster is built on the open Ethereum network rather than the closed Facebook platform, providing a greater opportunity to realize the true "Open Graph" envisioned by people.
However, I must say that the current playability of this game on Farcaster is extremely low. It's basically displaying game screens through screenshots, and I lose patience within 10 seconds. However, Frames is a platform where developers can unleash their creativity and try various new applications. Applications will attract users, who will then establish networks. Compared to past SocialFi platforms that focused on making money and had a fleeting existence, the community atmosphere of Farcaster is less restless, providing a better chance to overcome the cold start problem of social networks.
Gaming is just one example; a better experience on Farcaster is reading text. Recently, the Web3 writing platform Paragraph also launched its own Frames. Below is a screenshot of me sharing Paragraph content to Farcaster. At the bottom of the image, you'll see four buttons: external reading, in-app reading, subscription notification, and NFT minting. In-app reading allows you to read directly within Farcaster posts, subscription notification sends new content notifications to your wallet, and NFT minting allows you to store articles in your wallet.
This brings me to two major highlights:
Farcaster can fully display the basic functions of Paragraph, which sharply contrasts with the unfriendliness of platforms like Facebook and X towards external links.
Readers can mint NFTs through this post without having to reconnect their wallets; Paragraph already recognizes you.
The reason Farcaster is more friendly towards external links is because its relationship with external links is different. Paragraph isn't here to snatch away users' external links but rather to attract users with helpful plug-in tools. The more attractive the external links are, the more likely users are to leave the platform. However, the better the plug-in tools, the more users will be attached to the platform.
Secondly, both Farcaster and Paragraph are built on Ethereum and recognize the same wallet, so users don't need to repeatedly declare their identity. If this were a paid exclusive article, readers could unlock the paywall even on Farcaster. Super convenient!
But the most practical aspect is online shopping. The image below shows a Frames selling cookies, where users can directly purchase cookies on the social platform. During checkout, after your authorization, the system can directly deduct payment from your wallet. No need to log in, enter card details, and after checkout, you'll still remain within the social platform, ready to continue browsing the next post.
Furthermore, someone might develop affiliate links. Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) can directly share profits through cryptocurrencies without the need to track click-through rates and conversion rates to measure effectiveness. These are all unprecedented innovations. Different applications on Farcaster can be recombined because they are all applications based on Ethereum, sharing the same state.
Before Farcaster launched Frames, it was just another "Lens Protocol," and it wasn't until Frames appeared that my perception changed significantly. However, competing with Web2 social platforms, I am not that optimistic. Because what they are competing for is the scarcest resource for modern people - attention.
Attention Competition
I used Farcaster for the first time during the Chinese New Year, just to grab the Mask Network's red packet airdrop. After the New Year, my account was left unused. After all, back in the day, checking in on Facebook to "steal crops" required patrols every now and then. But on Farcaster, there aren't enough attractive Frames yet to make people revisit regularly.
Even just considering social networks themselves, I feel that Facebook, X, IG are already enough, with YouTube, Netflix, TikTok, and Xiaohongshu waiting in line. Farcaster's priority seems to be at the bottom. But now I occasionally check if there are any new Frames, which is quite different from the deliberate use of SocialFi social platforms in recent years just to make money or claim airdrops.
Moreover, with the Ethereum London upgrade significantly reducing L2 transaction fees, it not only lowers the barrier for new users but also makes non-financial applications easier to emerge. Although few people know about Farcaster now, I am optimistic about what it represents behind the scenes - the "true Open Graph," which can surpass closed social platforms in both user experience and content richness. Farcaster isn't about getting more people to use cryptocurrencies; it's about building a social network that people truly need with blockchain technology.
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