Implementing Web3 Social Interactions

Introduction

As blockchain technology evolves, the era of Web3 gradually permeates our lives. The core concept of Web3 is to liberate the Internet from centralized control, culminating in a more efficient, secure, and decentralized network environment.

Web3 isn’t merely a decentralized internet; it also grants users expanded horizons. The rise of Web2 social media altered our modes of communication, and the emergence of Web3 social solutions addresses the issues of centralization and censorship prevalent in conventional social media. It bestows users with increased freedom, yet it also presents challenges.

What is Web3 Social?

Web3 symbolizes the next epoch of the internet—a decentralized internet. It represents a novel network model, created by, owned by, and offering token incentives to users. In the Web3 ecosystem, users can truly own their data. All transactions within this ecosystem are safeguarded by encryption technology. Users no longer need to place trust solely in brand endorsements; instead, they can rely on definitive contract codes to rigorously enforce protocols.

The cornerstone of Web3 lies in decentralized storage, manifested in various forms, including decentralized online socialization. In other words, Web3 represents a network preference, while Web3 social indicates model selection. In a Web2 network, users’ data is monopolized by centralized platforms, with no data sharing involved. In contrast, under the Web3 social model, users opt to join social platforms and determine the extent of their involvement, or the degree to which they share their data.

Web3 social platforms amass users’ data and social relationships on-chain, coupled with attractive token mechanisms for users, ultimately generating a substantial audience for the platform.

Web2 Social vs. Web3 Social

Characteristics of Web2 Social Platforms

Web2 socialization primarily focuses on two aspects. First, instant communication socialization represented by QQ, WeChat, and TG emphasizes point-to-point communication and interaction. These social platforms retain users through strong connections between them. Second, content creation socialization represented by Weibo, TikTok, and Twitter emphasizes the display and dissemination of content (text, images, videos, etc.). These platforms retain users through content. However, content creation on these platforms mainly comes from celebrities, influencers, public figures, KOLs, etc., who maintain relationships with their fans through content creation.

Beyond these social applications, Web2 social apps have other modes, such as social e-commerce represented by the WeChat business model, social news represented by public accounts, and social entertainment represented by mini-program games. Currently, Web2 social applications have basically matured, with high user stickiness. However, for Web2 social platforms, data and content are relatively isolated among different platforms. A few giant platforms have gained significant influence, and platform benefits have not been fairly distributed to users and creators, presenting an opportunity for the emergence of Web3 social platforms.

Challenges for Web3 Social Platforms

Web3 advocates for decentralization, anti-censorship, data on-chain, and user sovereignty. Based on these features, Web3 social platforms have caused disruptions to Web2 social platforms.

In Web3 platforms, data will not be monopolized by giants, but instead, owned by each user. Users can control their personal information, user relationships, and creative content, and decide how to share these data. This empowers creators to retain ownership of the content they create for the platform, fostering user creativity and enriching online content. If a platform invades user privacy, blocks content access, or even shuts down user accounts, users can transfer their social graphs and content to other platforms.

Web3 platforms disrupt the monopoly of traditional social platforms, aiming to achieve greater decentralization and creative freedom. On these platforms, users have complete control over their data while ensuring data anonymity and security. From this perspective, Web3 socialization represents a trend, challenging the current Web2 era.

Achieving Web3 Social

While Web2 is beleaguered with an array of challenges including centralization, user empowerment, data privacy, and equity distribution, it cannot be denied that the centralized services of Web2 are more accessible, offering a seamless user experience. What then, one might wonder, must a sterling Web3 social product accomplish to carve out a niche in the market?

• Enhancing User Experience: From the vantage point of user experience, it is imperative that Web3 social applications set the bar at least as high as their Web2 counterparts in terms of accessibility and engagement. As it stands, Web3 has not manifested any groundbreaking advancements in user experience compared to Web2. Furthermore, the barriers to entry and the initial phase of a product being limited to serving the Web3 community imply that the novelty of Web3’s vision can at best serve as a conduit for initial traction, but not as the linchpin for success. Content distribution and target audience for Web3 products should hold more value than Web2 offers.
• Cultivating Social Ties Around Web3 Social Networks: The decentralized nature of Web3 enables users to bind their wallets to avatars through NFT identities and exercise autonomy over their data. This allows for cross-community and cross-platform content interaction while maintaining consistent social relations across all platforms, building social networks around applications to foster user loyalty.
• Proffering Value-Added Services for Users and Creators: While Web2 has already sown the seeds of the fan economy, the financial attributes of Web3, with its roots in DeFi, make it an integral component of social platforms. With the bespoke token mechanisms of Web3 platforms, users become direct beneficiaries and can monetize their clout; the efforts they invest are duly rewarded, empowering individuals to shine truly. It is paramount to remember, however, that the essence of social interaction is human connection, not finance. While finance can complement social interaction, it should never usurp the primary role.

In summation, a triumphant Web3 social product must not only elevate user experience but also encourage the building of genuine social connections, while judiciously employing financial incentives to enrich the ecosystem.

Exploring Web3 Social Products

This article scrutinizes current Web3 social projects, predominantly social platforms, content creation platforms, and social graphs.

Social Platform - FaceDAO

FaceDAO promotes the concept of SoicalFi. It’s a decentralized social platform blending DeFi with social gameplay. The platform allows users to freely join chats, view and browse posts, earning $FACE token rewards through posting, liking, sharing, and commenting. FaceDAO aims to create a platform driven by the community, where token holders can participate in DAO governance and decide on the activities they partake in.

For more info, visit https://facedao.pro/

Content Creation Platform - Mirror

Mirror is one of the most well-known social products in the crypto circle. It’s a decentralized content publishing platform. User content on Mirror is stored on the Arweave chain, giving users complete ownership over their published content.

Furthermore, users can mint the entire content of an article into an NFT, enabling admirers of the work to directly mint and collect the article’s NFT to support the author. The author holds the copyright from the outset and receives financial support based on this. Additionally, Mirror introduces many novel features, such as Web3 subscription functionality. By centralizing subscriptions in the Web3 wallet, Mirror enhances social connections between fans and creators. It builds a wallet-based community that can be used across Web3; with ENS support, users can link ENS names to their Mirror profiles. Mirror encourages unprecedented collaboration through various co-creation features, supporting DAO and multi-signature.

With the continuous rollout of features, Mirror aims to become not only a content creation platform but a foundational tool for the Web3 world, aligning with its slogan: “Create and connect your world on Web3.”

For more info, visit https://mirror.xyz/

Social Graph - Lens Protocol

Lens Protocol, developed by Aave on the Polygon chain, is a composable, permissionless, decentralized social graph. It aims to give creators ownership over their connections with their community. The core design of the protocol revolves around the concept of modularity, serving as a platform for project teams to build applications - this is why Lens Protocol is referred to as a social graph. Primarily, Lens is akin to Twitter, with the main difference being that all user content and data are recorded on a unique Profile NFT. Creators and users hold ownership over their generated content through NFTs. The currently available features include: user publishing of Profile NFTs, following others’ NFTs, publishing or liking comments, sharing content, and collecting. Thanks to NFTs, users can share and trade social content more directly.

For more info, visit https://www.lens.xyz/

The Future of Web3 Social Networks

The Dilemma of Web3 Social Networking

The development of Web3 social networking presently confronts numerous challenges, prominently in the following areas:

Firstly, the reward mechanisms need further refinement. The profits reaped by Web3 platform users largely stem from content creation rewards and X to learn, heavily contingent upon the token system’s judicious design.

Secondly, the issue is whether it can effectively enhance user engagement. At present, on-chain social behavior is driven by economic incentives. However, the essence of social interaction is rooted in users attempting to establish natural and effective connections with others.

Thirdly, the difficulty of cross-platform interaction. Although Web3 advocates for data sharing and composability, currently, for a DApp, accessing and utilizing data models and algorithms created by other protocols poses a considerable challenge. This emphasizes the necessity for further application of blockchain technology.

Lastly, issues with regulation and the genuine decentralization of power. One of the significant issues with decentralization is that if the information is not reviewable, the propagation of incorrect information becomes easier. However, if the power is not genuinely conferred to the users, creating a more inclusive and diversified community becomes impossible.

Future Trends of Web3 Social Networking

First and foremost, the infrastructure for Web3 social networking needs continuous enhancement. At the level of Web3 social protocols, technologies related to storage, content distribution, identity, and reputation are continuously innovating, ensuring that social applications become safer, more stable, and highly scalable. With the gradual development of Web3 social networking, the ecosystem’s infrastructural demands are increasingly larger and the requirements increasingly stringent.

Next, the functionality of Web3 social platforms is becoming stronger and the playstyles are more varied. A user’s demands cannot be entirely met by a single product, rather, it requires breaking through information control, continuously optimizing platform functions, more closely integrating the properties of NFTs and Tokens with social characteristics, and the functions of this platform with those of other platforms to establish a more equitable and efficient Web3 social network.

Finally, the content value should return to the users. The philosophy of Web3 social networking lies in solving the inequitable value distribution between users and platforms. Consequently, Web3 social products must assist users and creators in establishing a transparent and fair incentive system, allowing users to relish the value of social interaction.

Conclusion

The emergence of Web3 social media has shattered the traditional data ownership paradigm, granting users direct access rights, a shift that holds critical implications for future privacy. Additionally, Web3 social networking lures creators through its unique tokenization scheme, diversifying the scope of social interaction. While some issues remain unresolved at present, the new interaction scenarios and novel social relationships it fosters are nonetheless worthy of our attention moving forward.