Lens: A Social Web3 Protocol
For the first time in our lives, we are at an interesting junction where our digital identities are almost as worthy as our physical identities. All of us spend an increasing amount of time on social media. Yet, our digital personas and the content that we watch are owned by large companies that harvest and monetize that data. In present-day protocols, we rent the platform and pay through our privacy or by spending time watching irrelevant advertisements. Furthermore, the platforms are siloed since the content isn’t shareable across applications, resulting in high switching costs. This is where the power of Web3 comes in. In Web3, we can own our assets and have the autonomy of expressive conversations.
Lens Protocol is an underlying base layer for future decentralized social media applications. The protocol is built on the eco-friendly Polygon Proof-of-stake blockchain and launched by the highly successful Aave team. The protocol makes all the features and content of applications modular i.e., if you decide to switch from one application to another, all of your content and followers can come along as well. This results in a never seen personalized user experience and equal access to data for all shareholders. Furthermore, the protocol allows you to choose your algorithm and make the platform features that you interact with dynamic. This eliminates the network effect needed to scale an application. Lens Protocol truly leverages the power of organic social connections by combining elements from both on-chain and off-chain events through verifiable credentials such as POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) and the Disco platform. This element of modularity differentiates Lens Protocol from other Web3 Social Platforms such as EOS Voice or DeSo because these platforms only rebrand the network effects of Web2 in a pseudo Web3 format. The Lens protocol currently functions as a multi-sig wallet and eventually wants to become a DAO.
Live applications on Lens protocol include:
1. Lenster: The blockchain Twitter.
2. Clipto: A platform for requesting personalized videos from content creators.
3. TeaParty: A platform for engage-to-earn i.e., completing required tasks to get a Tea token, which essentially means that you can monetize your time.
4. Papyrus: The blockchain Substack.
5. Iris: The blockchain Twitch.
6. Hashchat: The blockchain messaging application that would integrate all Twitter, Instagram DMs, or WhatsApp messages into one.
By leveraging the inter-operability effects of Lens Protocol, a subscriber who follows an influencer only on Lenster can directly request a Clipto video through the Hashchat messaging application. Hence, now no boundaries for cross-platform communications exist. Furthermore, you can also figure out if someone’s telling the truth by looking at their immutable and verifiable history on another application.
Therefore, Lens Protocol has the power to become the first decentralized Social Web3 project that can truly revolutionize the way we communicate as a society.
