Dan Romero pfp
Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
Why did you rename frames to mini apps? Why not just apps? 1. Apple does not like apps in their app store calling other things apps. 2. It's confusing for consumers -- an app is something I download from the app store and is on my home screen. It doesn't live in another app. 3. New developers were confused by "frames", especially since v1 -> v2 frames were so different. This was a consistent piece of feedback. So, similar to Warpcast -> Farcaster simplification for consumers, we chose to frames -> mini apps (the thing that's comparable to Telegram, World, WeChat, etc.) 4. Again, there's a cadre of folks on Farcaster who are obsessed with names. Single syllables, "catchy" names. They don't matter. Google, Airbnb, ChatGPT were all phenomenally successful despite bad names (they sound fine now because you're familiar with them). * See note in next cast 5. Future: I suspect we will see companies that have an 1) app and 2) mini app. Use mini app to onboard and build habit and then upsell to the next app.
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Dan Romero pfp
Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
* Note "But if names don't matter, then why rename Warpcast to Farcaster? Ah ha -- trapped you in a contradiction!" Different issue. 1. Farcaster has 10-100x the brand recognition vs. Warpcast. So changing the name is not about "the better name" -- arguably both names are nerdy and a bit weird to begin with -- and simplifying to a single name that more people have heard of. 2. Reducing from 2 to 1 name solves the confusing question for consumers -- "What's the difference between Farcaster and Warpcast?" -- and is easy enough for developers to figure out when reading the docs, similar to Uniswap. A way to think about this is ChatGPT 4o vs. ChatGPT o3 vs. ChatGPT o4-mini-high. ChatGPT the name is fine at this point -- it's fast approaching a household name for AI in the same way Google was for search. But the model subnames are really confusing. I suspect they just simplify to ChatGPT and auto-detect which model to use in the background for normal users.
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justin ouellette pfp
justin ouellette
@jstn
disagree that those examples are bad names, but it doesn't matter because farcaster is a great name and so is warpcast! very rarely does one have two good options. unifying around 'farcaster' is a wise move, proud to be on this platform
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6 reactions