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

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 a name for themselves. 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.

Our field has always been eager for engaging perspectives and in-depth discussions, and based on my experience, I know there are many people on the fringes of this field who have worthwhile ideas to share but just haven’t found the way to advance them.

What is the good news? If you can overcome the psychological 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’re interested in publishing long-form content, such as column blogs or lengthy guides, these platforms are great. Nowadays, some of the main platforms include:

• Mirror —— Last year, Paragraph acquired Mirror. Personally, I would recommend Paragraph, as all the focus 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 increasing application in the Base and Farcaster ecosystems (such as the new Paragraph mini-apps), it is more popular than ever. It is also very friendly to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). You can mint an entire article as an NFT, or just a segment, and you can also 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 the time being, 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’re 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 impactful content, and you want to release your literary creations as true collectibles, what should you do? In this regard, you also have some very good options, such as:

• Highlight —— This Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) platform has just launched a brand new market user experience interface that allows you to publish various 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 publish 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 wish to have an Instagram-like experience when posting text images, then Rodeo might be your best choice right now. This app has also just adopted a dollar-denominated method, 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) 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 the success. The other half is getting more people to see your content, which generates 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 content on-chain to blockchain social networks like Farcaster and Lens.

When it comes to Farcaster, the most user-friendly Twitter-like application is Warpcast (which will likely be renamed to Farcaster soon, sharing the name with 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 bookmark your content.

More creator-friendly mini-apps are expected to be launched 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 dive into publishing content in 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 want to find 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 and generate revenue over time.

That said, if you are the kind of person who wants to publish works on X, Farcaster, and Lens simultaneously, 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 publish starts to gain attention, consider posting it on Kiwi News, which is like a crypto-friendly Hacker News section with 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 it feels like to have imposter syndrome (feeling like you don’t deserve your achievements), and I still sometimes experience this feeling today. But if you want to be a creator in the crypto space, at some point you have to cross that threshold and bravely get involved.

Your biggest obstacle right now is likely psychological. Over time, you will get better; we all do. 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 make them work for you.