Web3 with TPan: Farcaster Frames
A deep dive on the latest feature propelling the platform forward
TPan
Content Genius
A Word from the Editor
This week Netcetera is running a syndicated piece from Myosin.xyz Content Guild member and web3 Substacker-at-Large TPan. As web3 social continues to heat up and the term “consumer crypto” is increasingly prominent, this focus on the “what” rather than the “who” feels deeply relevant to the space.
If you'd like to see more of TPan’s work, check out his Substack (including more on Farcaster) and follow him on Twitter.
Rowan Spencer | Editor-in-Chief
Farcaster Launches Frames
The state of the web3/decentralized social space has been something like this:
Alright that’s a little aggressive, but isn’t completely off. Many of the web3 social products that launched over the past couple of years look like X clones, cause more operational headaches than benefits (e.g.: 3 social feeds instead of 1), and don’t have mainstream appeal (yet).
On the other hand, some of these apps have found product market fit with web3 natives, are experimenting with features that aren’t possible on mainstream social apps, and are attracting notable figures as early adopters.
One feature that has people excited is Farcaster Frames, announced via a simple post by V, Farcaster cofounder.
What are Frames?
Frames are effectively mini-apps within a post. The way Farcaster implements it is novel although the concept itself isn’t. If we take a step back, numerous versions of this concept exist today:
Post types on mainstream social apps
Varun’s example in his launch post was a Frame for a poll, while below I have a draft of a hypothetical poll on X.
Both are mini-apps, but one is an established feature and post type while the other is one example out of many with the possibilities limited by the creator.
Phantom Shortcuts
Phantom has been incorporating its own version of Frames in its wallet. Some examples of the functionality:
Specific assets are turning into mini-apps within the Phantom wallet. The current limitation is that Phantom hasn’t opened up these Shortcuts to everyone yet since it’s in beta. However, this is one big step further than post types on social media apps previously mentioned.
Browser extensions
A feature so commonplace that we frequently forget about them, browser extensions are essentially mini-apps that provide more functionality to the web browsers we use every day.
There are now hundreds of thousands of extensions, some of which have been a part of multi-billion dollar acquisitions.
Frames takes elements of each of the above examples:
Enhance the ‘what’ that can be posted in terms of content (web2 social post types)
Incorporate onchain elements based on holdings (Phantom Shortcuts)
Supercharge the core experience (browser extensions)
The technical details of Frames are here and cofounder Dan Romero shared a simplified description of what Frames are as well:
What has been built so far?
The Farcaster community has taken a strong liking to Frames and they’ve been building.
Some fun examples:
One-click subscribe to Paragraph newsletters: Although I’m still a Substack boi, this looks mighty interesting 🧐
Minting directly on Farcaster: You can add specific requirements, eg: Need to recast to mint, need to hold a certain amount of a specific token.
Claim testnet tokens: Great for devs and great for feeling fake rich!
And the crowd favorite, purchase Girl Scout Cookies with crypto!
Many Frames incorporate onchain capabilities (minting, subscribing, purchasing). This would typically be a potential point of friction because many folks don’t have wallet addresses and is negated because Farcaster requires a wallet address to use the protocol. Because of this, users are prequalified to interact with Frames and the onchain interactions that come with them.
Is this the killer feature web3 social needs?
Maybe. Too early to tell. It’s clear that this is a feature that differentiates web3 social vs. web2 social and a few days in, Frames has helped Farcaster reach all-time highs in terms of users.
Earlier today the Farcaster team added functionality to Frames, allowing redirects within the Frame itself.
Organic interest around Frames has blossomed: Variant Fund hosted a spontaneous Frames hackathon in NYC; Deform hosted a Frames hackathon in SF. We can certainly expect more interesting applications to come.
If you want to read up on more gigabrain thoughts on Frames (which IMO indicates that there’s something interesting happening), check out these takes:
“Framing the Future of the Internet” by Packy
“Headless Marketplaces: Go Where the Wallets Are” by Jesse Walden
“Why Farcaster Frames are Important” by Antonio García Martínez
Antonio’s piece provides a particular nugget that encapsulates the excitement well:
What we have in Frames is a new Web3 primitive that Web2 could never really power: an easy way to run app X while a user is still inside app Y, with little coordination between X and Y. The interoperable identity and decentralized transaction record of the blockchain, along with the seamless handling of money and digital ownership, makes it possible to have a real and universal graph of user actions across consumer apps, something even Facebook at the height of its popularity couldn’t manage. It is the Open Graph vision, even if all that remains of the original protocol is the <meta> tags that make the initial connection possible (while the blockchain does the rest).
Web3 social has struggled to play by the ‘rules’ of web2 social, but now we’re seeing ways in which web3 social is moving the goalposts and redefining the game itself.
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