This is a follow up post on an article I wrote about Lens a couple of months back. In case you missed it you can access it here- https://medium.com/@sambtc/lens-protocol-social-media-disruption-imminent-207ab85df353
Since the day I got to know about Lens Protocol and what are their plans to create a Decentralised Social Media platform, I have been really interested in their development plans.
I got to know about the different apps they have built like Lenster, Lenstube, Lensta etc and how they may shape up to be the Facebook, Youtube and Instagram of the future while being decentralised and protecting content creators from whimsical rules of any centralised authority.
One major hurdle I encountered in my journey to explore more about the Lens Ecosystem was the pre-requisite of holding a Lens ID. As I had missed to be a part of the OG group that minted the IDs for free the only option available was to buy it from a secondary market like Opens where it was selling for over $100 at that time in June.
I was in a bit of liquidity crunch at that time so I kept waiting for the small giveaways they will have for people registered on the waitlist for the IDs. As is usually the case I did not have any luck with these giveaways so I finally decided to take things into my own hands. I did what any sane person would do in my situation and sold one of the Trump NFTs which for some reason I was holding since the launch. How this decision will age long term is another discussion but I did not sold all of my Trump NFTs, so if the big guy with pretty orange hair comes back to power in next election and his NFT hots 10 ETH floor I will still have something to celebrate.
Anyways coming back to Lens, as now I had some extra funds I decided to finally get one Lens handle from the market. Yes, the cheapest one from the floor as my intention was just to try out the ecosystem and not to bag the coolest sounding ID.
Lenster: Facebook Killer?
I had heard a lot about the Lenster app and I must say that for the last few days I have been using Lenster I am amazed by how simple and easy to use the app is. IT does not have a clutter feel that most apps these days have. Even if someone opens it for the first time he will intuitively know how to navigate it. They have also added mechanism for creators to mentiste the content they share. Basically its all set to shine as soon as the user base hits the critical mass and the big question is when that big wave of adoption will happen. Till then I will relax and keep posting about my exploits in the Crypto wild west on Lester.
If you are already there then hit me up at https://lenster.xyz/u/nofam
I do not have any invites to give out free IDs but in case I do get them in future I will definitely include it in the next post I write about Lens.
Buttrfly: Grow your Community!
The first thing I noticed when I started using this app was that this was already integrated with Lenster. All the people I had connected with on Lenster were visible to me on Buttrfly.
This is a great platform for artists like photographers, painters, musicians to showcase their work and grow a community of likeminded people with similar interests.
Lenstube: Can this take on Youtube?
As the name suggests this is a video sharing app very similar to YouTube. If it become successful it will be a big relief of content creators which are sick of the arbitrary rules and restrictions that get imposed by YouTube.
My first impression is that they have simply copied the YouTube look and feel and have not tried any thing new or innovative.
Landing page looks identical to YouTube with the trending videos and shorts with the YouTube shorts being renamed as Bytes.
I will give it a shot and upload a few videos there to see what kind of engagement I get.
Overall I think the individual apps in the Lens ecosystem still have a long way to go till they can dream of threatening the big players like Instagram and YouTube. The only solid app I feel is Lenster which already has a good number of active users and it has a lot of unique features which differentiates it from other platforms.
The biggest turning point for Lens Protocol will be how smoothly it is able to integrate all the apps running on it so users get a better experience by leveraging the reach across multiple forums at the same time.
I will be watching how this unfolds over the coming months.
Cheers,
Sam
