Work in progress: how to think about the Farcaster channels opportunity

- <100 people groups and >1 million person audiences are well-served today by at-scale world-class mobile apps
- 100 to 1 million person groups are stuck with desktop-oriented apps like Discord and subreddits (cf. Apollo popularity) https://i.imgur.com/mcGEd3S.png

If we can figure out how to scale channels (there's still a lot of work to do), every channel becomes it's own social network with multiple clients -- some general purpose Farcaster clients (like Warpcast) that optimize for breadth but potentially more-tailored clients (a Sportscaster client).

Forkable for a starter Farcaster client repo?

https://twitter.com/Baconbrix/status/1657875857820483585

Farcaster client that only shows top level casts <140 characters. 

No expanded media. Usernames and links work.

Walled by their tech choices. Can't port FC to Bluesky etc.

A Farcaster client could run both an ActivityPub / Mastodon and ATProto / BlueSky server and do bi-directional sync at the client level.

What makes you log on to Farcaster & engage daily?

soon: "farcaster client" 👀

https://twitter.com/ronithhh/status/1641318606549176321

I think an audio-oriented Farcaster client would do well. Top 3 casts last week were about listening to stuff.

 https://i.imgur.com/xQeRgaH.png

i’ve been following this repo for the past few days, and i’m once again amazed by oss

https://github.com/mckaywrigley/chatbot-ui

Once Hubs launch, I suspect an open source React Native Farcaster client OSS repo would do well.

re: ChatGPT plugins — maybe a Farcaster client that you can talk to, a la "Her", could now work.

- "catch me up on what's happening (since I last checked the app)"

- "show me casts about solidity"

- "what new products launched today?"

https://warpcast.com/dwr/0xbabc13

Anyone working on an open source Farcaster client? cc @vbuterin

Wrote up some thoughts on how we're thinking about the interaction between farcaster clients, wallets and on-chain identities

https://warpcast.notion.site/Farcaster-Identities-Wallets-825361e99f684781b764bc210c33ffc5

Only true for as long as the network remains selective. If the same people and same number of people as on Twitter were on here, what would the value difference be?

I think the beauty of FC is composability with other apps. Even when the network is entirely open rather than selective there will be a plethora of additional apps that make the FC experience curated to different preferences and use cases. 

What do you think @dwr.eth ?

Once hubs are permissionless, all of the data and APIs will be permissionless, so any developer is free to create a new social network based on whatever criteria they think makes for the best experience.

So if you want to create a first 10K users on Farcaster client and run that forever, you can.

Idea for a simple Farcaster client:

LinkCast

Endless scroll of all URLs shared on Farcaster, but focus on OpenGraph previews and minimize cast commentary content as a comment.

Doesn’t require an account, just an app to skim and maybe find something interesting. Sort of like StumbleUpon.

Idea for a simple Farcaster client: 

FarHouse

A single room audio hang out gated with Farcaster account.

https://www.daily.co/products/audio-sdk/

https://github.com/daily-demos/party-line

A Farcaster client that opens to the camera by default and is mostly for posting photos and video would probably do well.

I’d be a DAU if it was simple, well designed and fast.

New Farcaster client for Android from @betashop and team

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xyz.purple&hl=en&gl=US

Yes.

email : Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail
git : GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket
ethereum : MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Rainbow
farcaster : Warpcast, Discove, Purple, Phrasetown, etc.

Weird. It’s confusing because in all those examples above, farcaster is the only one with an interface. So it’s breaking my mental model of how things are layered

All of the examples I cited are alternative interfaces to Farcaster. Making it easier use other Farcaster clients besides Warpcast is a top priority for us in the next few months.

Eventually, every social network becomes dominated by its default algorithm. Twitter has gone all-in and even Farcaster's highlights are dominated by questions. This isn't good or bad on its own but it does create winners and losers for viewership. The question I sometimes ask myself: is it a game worth winning?

1. Multiple competing Farcaster clients means there won’t be a single algorithm.

2. We’re investing in machine learning this year. Our plan is to tweak the algo on a regular basis with buffs and nerfs like a game developer does. Want to keep things fresh and fun.

If someone is looking for a starting place for a Swift Farcaster client that works on mobile and desktop:

https://daringfireball.net/2023/01/ice_cubes_app_store_limbo

https://github.com/Dimillian/IceCubesApp

New Vine-like (!!) Farcaster client from @polluterofminds

getabsorb.com https://i.imgur.com/VP3YY33.jpg

New Farcaster client from @loracle 

https://omilos.xyz https://i.imgur.com/lXYEW4y.jpg

I spent a while looking into wallet auth today for a side project — what do people use? https://www.rainbowkit.com/ is the most polished I found (esp for mobile web).

we use RainbowKit for our Farcaster clients

Which part(s) of FC (ecosystem, client(s), protocol components, etc) deserve the most attention in 2023?

2023 will be the year of Farcaster clients, I think!

Could be a fun hack project for a Farcaster client:

https://twitter.com/dwr/status/1316049862132224001

Farcaster client idea: Evercast

Beyond just liking or recasting (or bookmarking), backup every cast you tap into, spend time reading the replies of, copy / share a link to into a Rewind AI style database that you can search.

Not much of an essayor so trying diagrams instead. My peeps have been asking me about difference between Crypto vs DeFi vs Web3. Do folks agree with this split? https://i.imgur.com/xqXIy1D.png

Farcaster clients are self-custodial wallets?

NFTs are both DeFi and Web3

1. Plans for NFT purchases directly from app?

2. Anyone working on Spaces equivalent?

1. Lower priority for now but Farcaster clients are Ethereum wallets under the hood…

2. @unlonely feels like it’s the first Farcaster native live app. We don’t have plans for live audio in app any time soon

What are the benefits of hosting images on imgur?

We don’t have to handle image compliance. Imgur machine learning and if you upload something illegal they will pass that along to authorities. Farcaster clients are pulling in images like a browser would.

Would be cool for a Farcaster client (maybe CLI?) that was 100% text-based.

https://plaintextsports.com

I think a music oriented client Farcaster client would do well:

- parse Spotify, YoutTube links shared in global feed to create “Farcaster Radio”

- music NFTs

- music discussions / recommendations etc.

@df / dwrs-farcaster-client-ideas