Welcome to the Beginner’s Guide to Web3 Social!
First things first: what’s centralized social media? These are the apps most people use every day; the Instagrams, Twitters, and Facebooks of the world. In centralized social media, users’ social data and connections are stored on centralized servers owned and controlled by large corporations and parent companies like Meta (Facebook) or ByteDance (TikTok).
Decentralized social media is the opposite — it’s where users’ online interactions, content, and social data are stored in transparent, open-source environments, like on a blockchain (i.e., Ethereum) or a decentralized storage server (i.e., IPFS), that is not owned or accessed by any single entity but by the users and builders themselves.
Tokenizing user-owned content refers to owning, storing, and collecting content as tokens on a blockchain, often as NFTs. Tokenizing content (and connections) is a major use case and opportunity of Web3 Social to return value to content creators who no longer must navigate the limiting climate of publishing content via centralized social media channels to reach an audience and generate value.
How are Web3 and Web2 Social Networks Built Differently?
Social networks rely on social graphs to connect the dots between users’ content, connections, and online identities; they’re like the building blocks to one’s entire online existence. These heavily guarded pillars of centralized social media’s architecture (i.e. the “stack”) exist in what many refer to as "walled gardens,” meaning they are inaccessible environments that lock out users from owning their content and social data, and prevent developers from accessing that data to provide users a better experience.
In Web3 social, however, social graphs are made open-source and composable (i.e., interoperable) so developers can leverage the same features to build into their own applications across different use cases, like content, music, events, art, trading, and so on. Imagine if Twitter was like a box of legos, where different developers could pick the individual pieces they (and their users) wanted most. That’s what happens at the social graph layer, where different blockchain-enabled social graphs enable developers to build countless Web3 social applications.
Here are some of the leading social graphs, networks, and a few of the applications they support.
Web3 Social Ecosystem: the Leading Protocols, Apps, and Players
CyberConnect enables developers to create social applications, empowering users to own their digital identity, content, connections, and monetization channels. CyberConnect has three core components: CyberAccount, a user-friendly smart account system; CyberGraph, a censorship-resistant database to record users’ content and social connections; and CyberNetwork, a gas-efficient and scalable network to bring Web3 social to the world.
CyberConnect utilizes decentralized storage protocols like IPFS and Arweave to store users’ social data, which is critical to Web3’s potential to scale applications while hosting data in a secure and decentralized environment. CyberConnect has a growing ecosystem of dApps (decentralized applications) built on its network to satisfy a variety of use cases. Its leading dApp, Link3, a content, community, and event amplification platform, has over 940k monthly active users.
Lens
Lens Protocol leverages a smart contract-based architecture built on the Polygon blockchain. Lens enables features like user-owned profile NFTs and on-chain modules for developers as the gateway to their ecosystem of dApps like Lenster, a content tool, and network where users follow and collect content to support creators. Beyond basic profile and following capabilities, Lens’ core concepts are content (Publications, Collecting, and Mirrors — i.e., re-shared publications), smart contract modules triggered via on-chain actions (Follow, Collect, etc.), and built-in governance, which allows groups to collectively make decisions in a decentralized environment, like a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).
Farcaster
Built on Ethereum, Farcaster is a decentralized, invite-only communication network and social graph focused on private, encrypted communication and messages (i.e., Casts), reactions, Amps (a unique temporary follow feature), on-chain verification tools to prove users’ identity and content ownership (fnames and Verifications), and various anti-impersonation, security-focused features. While Farcaster doesn’t currently have many front-end apps that can plug into its flagship application, current clients (i.e., apps) can integrate into its network by running their own Hub, which is the storage environment for social graphs activity where Casts originate. For many users who are frustrated with the limitations and unfair practices of centralized apps like Twitter, Farcaster has proved itself to be a useful alternative.
DeSo
Formally known as BitClout, DeSo is a social-focused Layer-1 blockchain designed to scale web3 social applications and support creators. As another open-source network, DeSo focuses on generating value for users and creators through on-chain content features outside of the guarded confines of centralized monetization channels. These products include Creator Coins, a social token that allow holders (i.e., owners) who create DeSo profiles to receive premium content, demonstrate their reputation and affinity toward other creators, and generate revenue from the sale of tokens as NFTs. DeSo serves as the “native currency” of the blockchain’s ecosystem, powering the trading of content and the cumulative level of creator and user reputation. Another unique aspect of DeSo is their development of Social NFTs, which allow for socially-driven user engagement (likes, comments, etc.) that can exist within NFT metadata.
What Links On-Chain Social Networks Together?
There’s a lot out there in Web3 social. So, what links these growing on-chain networks together? It often boils down to generating value through user-owned data and content. Whereas the billions of users and creators across centralized social media have grown accustomed to dwindling opportunities for generating value — often due to the limitations of shadowy algorithms, changing ad models, and fleeting user habits — decentralized social charts a different path forward. It’s a future where users are at the forefront, not the massive corporations who don’t have their best interests in mind. In the growing landscape of Web3 social, users, builders, and creators can pick the tools that will satisfy their needs and talents best on the platforms they love most. It’s a drastic departure from the traditional mindset experienced by content creators, community members, app developers, and anyone else devoted to building a better future for the internet.
Interested in beginning your Web3 social journey? Create your first Web3 profile here.
About CyberConnect
CyberConnect is a web3 social network that enables developers to create social applications empowering users to own their digital identity, content, connections, and monetization channels. Messari, Rarible, 1inch, BNB Chain, along with 2,600 projects and 1.2M users and creators are building long-lasting connections through apps built on CyberConnect.