Bankless: What are the decentralized content creation platforms worth following?

Question

Author: William M. Peaster, Bankless; Translated by: Tao Zhu, Jinse Finance

I started writing in the crypto space in 2017. Since then, I have turned writing into a profession and witnessed the emergence of many great decentralized tools in our ecosystem that meet the needs of creators like me.

I have also seen many authors who came into this field after me, and they have successfully made their mark. It is always a pleasure to read excellent works from new faces. Moreover, I firmly believe that the crypto space needs more authors, such as analysts, commentators, educators, historians, poets, and so on.

In our field, there has always been a thirst for engaging perspectives and in-depth discussions, and from my experience, I know that many people are hovering on the fringes of this field. They have worthwhile ideas to express, but just haven’t found the means to advance them.

What is the good news? If you can overcome the mental barrier of presenting yourself for the first time, then when you want to publish your content in a natively crypto way, there are many great tools available for you to use.

Of course, the obvious starting point is decentralized publishing platforms. If you are interested in publishing long-form content, such as column blogs or lengthy guides, these platforms are great. Nowadays, some of the major platforms include:

Mirror —— Last year, Paragraph acquired Mirror. Personally, I would recommend Paragraph, as all the attention is currently on it, but Mirror is still very reliable for publishing content on top-tier Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) networks, and many top projects are still publishing content here, such as Optimism.
Paragraph —— Paragraph has been around for a while, and due to its increasingly widespread application in the Base and Farcaster ecosystems (such as the new Paragraph mini-app), it is more popular than ever. It is also very friendly to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). You can mint the entire article as an NFT, or just a segment, and you can embed external NFT issuance projects based on your preference.
Fountain —— Fountain is a new, open-source publishing platform built natively on the Lens network. If you find yourself more invested in the Lens ecosystem than elsewhere, then for now, Fountain is a reasonable choice for publishing long-form content.
Fileverse —— Fileverse is built on a range of decentralized infrastructures, such as Ethereum, Gnosis Chain, Arweave, InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), Safe, and Ethereum Name Service (ENS). Its dDocs platform is like an on-chain version of Google Docs or Notion. If you are looking for a place to archive and share content, this is another interesting option. For example, I have archived some of my poetry here.

But if you are a word artist who prefers to publish more concise and vivid content, and you want to release your literary creations as genuine collectibles, what should you do? In this regard, you also have some excellent options, such as:

Highlight —— This Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) platform has just launched a brand new market user experience interface, allowing you to publish various types of non-fungible token (NFT) projects. If you prefer to publish your actual written works in image format, and you have a batch of such images you want to publish all at once, then for now, this can be said to be the best and most convenient platform for such operations.
Rodeo —— If you want to maintain a relaxed and casual atmosphere and hope to have a similar experience to Instagram when posting text images, then Rodeo might be your best choice right now. This app has also just adopted a dollar-based pricing model, making it more user-friendly.
Zora —— Zora is an on-chain creator platform where you can instantly turn any of your content into meme coins. The project has just launched support for text, so if you want to find a more liquid alternative to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for your written works, you can now publish short text content in the form of meme coins here.

Of course, publishing your content is only half of the success. The other half is to get more people to see your content, thereby generating those ideal second-order effects, such as sparking good community discussions, attracting more fans, and so on.

In this regard, a method that can achieve maximum results with minimal effort is to publish your on-chain content to blockchain social networks like Farcaster and Lens.

Speaking of Farcaster, the most user-friendly Twitter-like application is Warpcast (it will likely be renamed to Farcaster soon, sharing the same name as the platform), as it has a large user base and also features a Paragraph mini-application that makes it easy for others to read and save your content.

More creator-friendly mini-apps are expected to launch here in the coming months, or you might also consider creating or joining a creator channel like words.

In addition, Farcaster is built on three chains (Ethereum, OP mainnet, and Snapchain), while the latest version of Lens is deployed on its dedicated network - the Lens chain. If you want to deeply engage in publishing content within the Lens ecosystem, you need to adapt to the environment here.

I have mentioned Fountain, which is like the Lens version of Paragraph. But if you're looking for a platform more similar to Warpcast or X (formerly Twitter) on this network, consider posting content on Hey. If you want to try something more innovative, you might consider Bonsai's new smart media studio, which allows you to publish AI-driven posts that can evolve over time and generate revenue.

That said, if you are the type of person who wants to publish works simultaneously on X, Farcaster, and Lens, you might consider using web3 cross-platform publishing applications like Firefly or Yup.

Finally, there are various other applications that you may find very useful. For example, Hypersub, which is like an on-chain version of Patreon, allows you to manage subscriptions and send paid content to your most loyal fans.

Then, if an article you posted starts to gain attention, consider publishing it on Kiwi News, which is like a Hacker News section friendly to the crypto space, featuring various interesting topics related to on-chain.

I know what it feels like to be nervous when publishing your own work. I also know what impostor syndrome (the feeling of being unworthy) is like, and I sometimes still experience it today. But if you want to be a creator in the crypto space, at some point, you have to cross that threshold and participate boldly.

Your biggest obstacle right now is likely psychological. Over time, you will get better, and so will we all. But I think it's fair to say that in the crypto space, we need more people to step up and become creators. I hope you can write. Don't be afraid to start. If you decide to take that step, try these tools and let them work for you.