Temasek Web3 Fund Superscrypt: How does Web3 social networking open up a sea of new possibilities?
Original title:Web3 Social : Driving New Forms of Identity, Connection & Value Creation
Original author: Supercrypto and University of Southern California (USC) Blockchain Community
Original compilation: Qianwen, ChainCatcher
Superscrypt’s mission is to support founders and projects that bring the next wave of users to the blockchain space. We take a research-led approach to identify the key Web3 building blocks that will drive how we interact, create and share value globally. Today, were joining the Web3 community by blogging on Mirror and Link 3 to share our views with the world.
How to discuss Web3 social?
The use of decentralized blockchain technology is changing the way the world operates. While the most popular use case for blockchain is financialization (tokens, DeFi, and NFTs), social networks powered by the technology will support the development of new forms of identity, data ownership, and communication capabilities. In this article, we explore the core value proposition of Web3 Social, how various protocols and platforms work, how well product-market fit exists today, and its potential to be the way users of the future interact, build communities, make friends, and transact online.
To understand the viability of Web3 Social, the best way is to first understand how past waves of innovation were formed and evaluate whether Web3 Social has similar characteristics. Waves of innovation occur at the intersection of technological innovation and new consumer/commercial value; they change the way our world works, and the effects are often obvious in hindsight. Just like in the real world, tsunamis are often followed by several huge waves. Silicon chips and the Internet were the tsunami, and personal computing, e-commerce, digital financial services, and Web2 social platforms were the following waves. In the field of Web3, blockchain is the new tsunami, followed by waves such as decentralized finance, dapps and NFTs. Will Web3 social platforms become the new wave? Can it provide more added value than previous revolutions?
Data Openness and Portability
The social media applications we use today leverage complex networks of underlying data to enable our experiences, these are called “social graphs”; interconnected data structures that map our digital relationships and interactions, who we follow and subscribe to, likes content and so on. In Web 2.0, social graphs are private systems, and all assets, data, and behavioral analytics are owned or controlled by Internet companies. Users lack real ownership or control over this data, so social graphs are “siled” and cut off from other platforms; our identities and experiences will likely never be connected across platforms. To use a new platform, users must rebuild their past social relationships and historical records, but this brings huge user experience friction, causing users to be fixed on a certain platform. If an end user wants to switch from one application to another, they have to start from scratch.
How is Web3 Social Different? First, it aims to establish a base layer on which users social graph data is transparent, permissionless, transferable, and most importantly, users can control this data. We call this model Open Data.
Open data makes it easy for users to use new applications based on the same social graph without having to deal with redundancy issues. Anyone using a Web3 social platform can use their data for any application they want. Imagine Joe Rogan decides to move out of Spotify. Currently he and other creators have limited access to his fans, subscribers and content. In some ways, he has to start over on another platform. With Joe Rogans popularity, this shouldnt be a problem, but for 99% of artists, it means a lot of difficulty.
Siled data prevents independent developers from leveraging these social graphs and building new experiences and applications for users on top of them. Therefore, innovation in the field of social applications faces a huge cold start problem. New social applications are often developed, but often fail because they fail to gain traction. In the Web3 social world, if users can take their data and friends with them, they may be more willing to try new social experiences. An example of a novel Web3 social experience is Link 3, a social application based on the CyberConnect protocol. Link 3 is a hybrid of LinkedIn, Medium, and Eventbrite, but with cryptographic primitives embedded within it—allowing users to connect wallets, NFTs, and ENS names to build their profiles and influence.
Eliminating data silos also lowers the barrier to entry for new developers and reduces the network effects of social graphs that would otherwise monopolize user data. Open Data allows applications to read and write data from multiple social graph protocols; users can connect IDs from multiple Web3 social profiles to one or more applications. A good example is Phaver, which connects the social graphs of users from different networks in one interface by integrating with Lens Protocol and CyberConnect.
Open data standards provide us with open boundaries for content creation
Currently, we see examples of open data in existing Web2 social applications. META, owner of Facebook and Instagram, recently launched Threads. While the long-term value of Threads as an app is yet to be determined, Threads allows users to follow and connect with Instagram friends immediately after signing up. However, user data on Instagram and Threads are still isolated within the walls of META. Threads announced the possibility of integrating with ActivityPub, a standard communication protocol that allows users to interact with all platforms using ActivityPub, but the integration is not yet available.
The closed nature of Web2 social also has a huge impact on businesses operating on these platforms. Reddit recently implemented API pricing, which resulted in the closure of multiple applications and caused significant dissatisfaction among the community. This wouldnt be a problem if Reddit was built on a Web3 social infrastructure, since those apps and communities could bring their followers and content to new platforms where conditions are more favorable or values are more aligned.
In terms of content creation, since users are not locked into one platform, creators can choose to migrate to a different application while retaining ownership of their social graph data, mitigating the situation where a platform changes its monetization, management or revenue sharing model . In Web2 social, data silos prevent creators from having this freedom of choice.
Composability: Unlocking a Sea of New Possibilities
Since Web3 social protocols are deployed on the blockchain, they are generally highly compatible with other smart contracts and protocols. This open data architecture allows developers of new cryptocurrency innovations to freely integrate with Web3 social protocols and applications, such as connecting users’ on-chain history to populate their social profiles, displaying their owned NFTs as credentials, and enabling They are able to turn their content and posts into NFTs and potentially sell them. Traditional social media lacks composability, and even in the few cases where cryptocurrencies are integrated with Web2 social, they are neither native nor complete.
Combined with open data, web3’s composability enables creative developers to integrate their social platforms with cryptographic protocols—from DeFi apps, Metaverse games, DAOs, NFTs, and everything in between . For example, Warpcast is a platform based on the Farcaster protocol that allows users to find other members of the same NFT community, holders of the same POAP, and even link ENS domains to the users profile. These functions are achieved by linking Ethereum addresses to personal profiles, creating an overall identity on-chain. Other platforms offer similar functionality, with some such as Phaver allowing users to connect Lens profiles, ENS domains and Farcaster IDs into a single profile. Another example of Web3 composability is CyberConnects subscription model, which allows users to define relationships between creators and subscribers through the power of Subscribe NFTs.
Another possibility is SocialFi, a concept that Variant Capitals Mason Nystrom wrote about recently. SocialFi refers to the integration of the social and financial layers in people’s digital lives. Just imagine what traditional social media platforms could do if they had unlimited access to traditional financial exchanges, banks, loan providers, crowdfunding platforms, etc. Other features of SocialFi include enabling micropayments on Web3 social applications, on-chain lending credit scores linked to social identities, and biometric identification linked to social profiles.
As Web3 primitives continue to expand and evolve, the possibilities for cryptocurrency composability are endless—new experiences await.
The Next Level of Community Empowerment
Blockchain infrastructure is a powerful tool that brings people together for a common purpose. We’ve seen this in the past few years: token-driven communities have collaborated to bid for the U.S. Constitution (ConstitutionDAO), vote for DeFi protocol governance (Uniswap, Safe, Maker, Gnosis), invest in digital art (such as PleasrDAO), And building a social club around NFT collectibles. Participants become owners and highly engaged stakeholders.
Combining new innovations like dynamic NFTs with emerging Web3 social protocols will take these experiences to the next level. Combining real-world data with Web3 can further enhance this experience; for example, authentication, purchase, social relationships, and more relevant communities will also be generated immediately, real relationships will be easier to form, and new business forms will also emerge. .
At the same time, it is possible to visualize a Web3 social graph connected by complete identities (such as NFT profiles or other forms of tokens) that can cross-reference similar characteristics. Through open data and transparency, the platform can automatically generate communities based on profiles that share similar characteristics with other profiles in the social graph.
Some thought experiments include:
Users of a Web3 platform similar to LinkedIn could attach an identifier to their profile that links them to their alma mater, such as in the form of an NFT attribute. The platform can automatically create an alumni network community for users with the same alma mater; through a similar method, it can also automatically create a global community that is not affected by the Web2 data moat. Not only does it allow individuals to join a community, it also allows artists, writers, influencers, and other creators to build community with everyone who follows them.
Just imagine if an author sells a book with an NFT attached, then every NFT holder (who is also a certified purchaser of the book) can join a community to discuss the book and communicate with the author. As we will see shortly, practical examples of Web3 community capabilities also include users of Warpcast and other Web3 social applications, who are able to easily find the user profiles of others in the same community of NFT owners. These forms of globally unified community capabilities are beyond what Web2 can currently do.
The Orb, a Web3 social application, is bringing these thought experiments to life. Orbs allow any on-chain activity or possession to be transformed into a cohesive community. For example, different communities can be formed based on behaviors such as owning a specific number of ERC-20 tokens, holding NFT tickets or collections for specific events. Web3 social allows for new ways to build communities and make friends that go deeper than you can today.
Censorship Resistance and Ownership
Freedom of speech and expression, regardless of belief, belief or opinion, is a cornerstone of social media, although its limits have been controversial. Given the powerful control that traditional social platforms have over our data, they are in an overwhelmingly powerful position to control online speech and remove users from their platforms at their own discretion. Users have nothing to do but accept.
An example of platform control was recently demonstrated after Elon Musk took over Twitter (now renamed X). The Twitter Files (Twitter Files) are a series of leaked internal Twitter documents that reveal how the companys apps suppress and control information on the platform based on government requests or information it deems unsafe. While Elon championed truth and transparency through the document, ironically, the company unceremoniously took away the @x account from a user after Twitter changed its name to X. The same situation also happens to users with the @music account.
These examples highlight that on traditional Web2 platforms, users never truly have control over their identities, accounts, and in some cases, even their voices. The Web3 social platform solves this problem to a certain extent. Applications built on the Web3 social protocol can still manage content, but users still have complete autonomy and can choose to leave one application and switch to another, but still keep their data, even when All else fails, build your own censorship-resistant apps. The core principle here is that users don’t need to be locked into a specific app — they can ditch a social app if they want and migrate to a completely new one, taking all their data with them .
summary
Whats exciting about the Web3 social platform is that it brings new experiences for community, commerce, composability, participation, ownership, and identity, while also solving some of the core shortcomings of existing Web2 social platforms. New ways to build communities, make friends, and do business are just around the corner.
Equally exciting is the quality of entrepreneurs entering this space. Among Superscrypts investments, Airstack, Collab.Land, Orb, Notifi and Salsa are solving different challenges in Web3 social in terms of access, experience or interoperability.
Theres a long way to go to bring Web3 social to the masses - the technology and applications are growing but are still in their infancy. We look forward to many more iterations before achieving true product-market fit and will share more updates with you soon.
