Warpcast (The Web3 Twitter Clone) Is Growing Fast! Here’s the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of It All…
TL;DR
On Web3 social platforms your username, photos, videos, text posts, messages, and followers are all transferrable between apps.
Unlike other Web3 social platforms, you don’t have to pay to use Warpcast’s basic features (think: posting, liking, commenting, etc.), so people use it more frequently.
‘Frames’ are the reason Warpcast has BLOWN UP recently, increasing daily active users +400% in the past week or so. Frames lets developers build experiences that would usually require a website/browser directly into Warpcast, so you never leave the feed.
Full Story
Everyone is excited about Warpcast (aka the Web3 version of X/Twitter) all of a sudden…but why is that?
Let’s start here 👇
The appeal of Web3 social platforms in general:
On Web3 social platforms your username, photos, videos, text posts, messages, and followers are all transferrable between apps.
So if you were to blow up on 'Web3 X/Twitter’ — and then someone created ‘Web3 Instagram’ using the same protocol (aka ‘software rule set’) — you could take all of your followers/content with you to the ‘hot new app.’
The appeal of Warpcast itself:
There are a BUNCH of Web3 X/Twitter clones out there, and no one is using them…so what is Warpcast doing right??
Unlike other Web3 social platforms, you don’t have to pay to use Warpcast’s basic features (think: posting, liking, commenting, etc.), so people use it more frequently.
The ‘Farcaster’ protocol, which powers the Warpcast app, just added a new feature called ‘Frames’.
‘Frames’ are the reason Warpcast has BLOWN UP recently, increasing daily active users +400% in the past week or so.
The feature works like this:
Frames lets developers build experiences that would usually require a website/browser directly into Warpcast, so you never leave the feed.
Which sounds kinda redundant (browser, no browser — who cares?), but it actually makes a lot of sense when you A/B test each experience:
Web2 social:
See a product you want to purchase → click the ‘buy’ link → a browser opens the store’s website → click add to cart, cart page opens → click ‘go to checkout’ → autofill name/shipping info/billing address → enter card details → confirm purchase.
Warpcast:
See a product you want to purchase → click ‘buy’ → autofill shipping details → pay instantly via your linked crypto wallet.
One is high friction, while the other is ‘slippery,’ if you will.
And developers have been building all sort of things, from games, to a Warpcast-native store selling girl scout cookies!
That said, there is one BIG glaring problem with Warpcaster:
X/Twitter has the network effects (~260M daily users vs. Warpcast’s ~25k).
We can’t imagine that some cool new developer tools and the promise of interchangeable followers/content is enough to convince folks to leave X/Twitter en masse.
The cool part is:
If the Warpcast X/Twitter clone can’t bring millions of users to the Farcaster ecosystem — another app (with a new idea) might!