Farcaster

a strange thing is happening…

Farcaster is growing again. And it’s because of the third party dev projects, like aethernet, clanker and anon, not Warpcast’s feature development over the last months. 

Open + composable social primitives where every account has a wallet is what makes Farcaster special and different to X and alternatives.

Perhaps it’s time to admit that “Only Warpcast can grow DAUs, so let’s deprioritize enabling third party devs to build things, in the name of Warpcast’s scarce resources towards growing DAUs” was a mistake and lock in?

Senior prompt engineer. Shipped on farcaster: @larrybot, @qdau, @frames, @framesfun, /open-frames, farcasterchannels.com, farcaster.id, @mod, @search, @discove

also the ecosystem isn’t all amateur hobbyists and will actually build interesting things here without more DAUs being here.

would also be great from the team to acknowledge that DEGEN played a part in its initial growth

fc-updates

Frames v2 Draft Spec 

A new specification that makes frames: 

- fast and snappy 
- interactive with custom ui 
- fully integrated with wallets 
- retentive, by letting users save them and get in-app notifications

Feedback welcome! 

https://github.com/farcasterxyz/protocol/discussions/205

This just dropped so i guess its a step on the right direction >>

This just dropped so i guess its a step on the right direction >> https://warpcast.com/v/0xb749710d

I mean I certainly don’t doubt that folks are locked in now but what are some instances of things you think could’ve been done more for third party devs that could’ve helped them the past few months (or that exist and could help going fwd?)? just curious

well, to be fair, "number go up" helps a lot here

To me, the current thing reminds me of a degen mania - when suddenly there were tens of thousands of daily active users, but in a few months, only 1-2k remain. The hype and desire to get rich brings users, but maybe, only Warpcast can help them stick around when the hype is over?

this thread has many imp points which deserve a thoughtful dialogue.
- whether crypto txns/activity feed needs to be a first class citizen on warpcast or other frens apps and interfaces take care of it?
- 3rd party apps on FC graph need to fight for distribution vs. warpcast the conundrum is real - building for the ecosystem vs. fighting your own battle (raise vc$, compete with WC)
- if growth is the north star. either WC takes full responsibility of bulldozing forward (fast iteration) OR let 3p apps build new experiences/vectors to bring net new users. For the latter, 3p devs need to be set up for success. 
- if Warpcast feed is the breeding ground for growth and app frames are the most imp lego for 3p devs.

https://warpcast.com/phil/0x2dc06624

good take. the only thing i'll change is that it doesn't matter if anything done in the past is/was a mistake or not. pre-pmf every team has to have a chip on their shoulder. you either win, or learn. 
it's time to look ahead and really embrace developer innovation on FC. there is a deadly combination at play today - critical mass of competent devs + great legos built on FC. this doesn't exist anywhere else (yet!)

lock and load the for the latter 👇 

"- if growth is the north star. either WC takes full responsibility of bulldozing forward (fast iteration) OR let 3p apps build new experiences/vectors to bring net new users. For the latter, 3p devs need to be set up for success. "

good take. the only thing i'll change is that it doesn't matter if anything done in the past is/was a mistake or not. pre-pmf every team has to have a chip on their shoulder. you either win, or learn. 
it's time to look ahead and really embrace developer innovation on FC. there is a deadly combination at play today - critical mass of competent devs + great legos built on FC. this doesn't exist anywhere else (yet!)

lock and load the for the latter 👇 

"- if growth is the north star. either WC takes full responsibility of bulldozing forward (fast iteration) OR let 3p apps build new experiences/vectors to bring net new users. For the latter, 3p devs need to be set up for success. "

https://warpcast.com/sahil/0x01a2262e

growth through ecosystem - true 
retention through ecosystem - still tbd

fwiw we ask Merkle for better developer legos all the time (helps our business); that said, I also think Merkle is implying "retained" DAUs when they talk about DAUs

if there are retained high quality protocol DAUs through ecosystem products, that's a pretty big win and significantly helps this take