Bankless: What are some 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 have 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. From my experience, I know that many people linger on the fringes of this domain, possessing ideas worth sharing, but they just haven't found the means to promote them yet.

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

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 quite good. Nowadays, some of the major platforms include:

Mirror —— Last year, Paragraph acquired Mirror. Personally, I would recommend Paragraph, as all the attention is currently focused on it, but Mirror is still quite 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 it is more popular than ever due to its increasingly widespread use in the Base and Farcaster ecosystems (e.g., the new Paragraph mini application). It is also very friendly to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). You can mint an entire article as an NFT, or just a snippet, and you can embed external NFT issuance projects according to your preferences.
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 series 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 visually striking content, and you want to release your written works as true 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 form, and you have a batch of such images you want to release all at once, then for now, this can be considered the best and most convenient platform for such operations.
Rodeo —— If you want to maintain a relaxed and casual atmosphere, and hope to have an experience similar to Instagram when posting text images, then Rodeo is probably your best choice right now. This app has also just adopted a pricing model in USD, making it more user-friendly.
Zora —— Zora is an on-chain creator platform where you can instantly convert 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) with your written work, 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 getting more people to see your content, which can generate those ideal second-order effects, such as sparking good community discussions, attracting more followers, and so on.

In this regard, a method that can achieve twice the result with half the effort is to publish your on-chain content on on-chain social networks like Farcaster and Lens.

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

More creator-friendly mini-apps are expected to go live here in the coming months, or you may also consider creating or joining creator channels like words.

Additionally, 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 dive into publishing content within the Lens ecosystem, you need to adapt to the environment here.

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

That being said, if you are the kind 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 might 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 published starts to gain attention, consider posting it on Kiwi News, which is like a Hacker News section friendly to the crypto space, featuring various interesting topics related to the blockchain.

I know what it feels like to be nervous when publishing your own work. I also know what imposter syndrome (the feeling of being undeserving) tastes like, and I still occasionally 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 bravely participate.

Your biggest obstacle right now is likely psychological. Over time, you will get better, and so will we all. But I think it's safe 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 make them work for you.