Written by: TechFlow
How to describe Solana?
Reborn from the ruins of FTX, a gathering place for golden dogs, cheap and easy to use... These labels that are close to assets obviously cannot fully describe Solana's ambitions.
It makes blockchain and mobile phones, and now it even wants to get into social media.
Yesterday, Solana officially announced another new product (or technology stack) --- Solana Blink, which converts any on-chain operation into a shareable link that can be embedded in any social media and website.
From the name, Blink is actually the abbreviation of Blockchain Links, which is the above-mentioned sharing link; but the abbreviation Blink (meaning blinking) is a pun:
On-chain operations are available in the blink of an eye.
Embedding chain activities into social media with just one link, doesn’t it feel a bit like Farcaster?
Like, but not exactly the same.
On-chain activity = a link
Judging from the public content, the biggest difference between Solana's Blink and Farcaster's Warpcast application is the indiscriminate adaptation.
What is indiscriminate adaptation?
In simple terms, Solana will not develop a dAPP itself, but will only provide a general on-chain behavior linking capability. You can put it on Twitter, INS or any other website and APP, without being picky about the application.
The official video intuitively demonstrates the experience of using Blink:
Someone posted a call for donations on Twitter and wrote a post with a Blink link
When others see the post, the link becomes a WYSIWYG donation page where you can directly click a button to donate;
No need to jump to any DAO, DEX or other dAPP, you can donate directly by clicking the button on the Twitter front end (wallet cooperation is required).
The donation is completed and the on-chain transaction takes effect, without having to pay attention to any details behind the blockchain.
From this example, we can see that Blink actually converts any on-chain activity into a link visible on the front end. Any user on the front end can click on this link, or click on the page represented by this link (such as donations, creation of NFTs, SWAP, etc.) to complete the on-chain operation without jumping.
The logic behind it is encapsulated, and there is only page interaction that is easier for users to understand.
Solana officially calls the technology stack that supports the implementation of Blink Actions: an API that allows the use of complex on-chain and off-chain business logic to build transaction messages, which can be browsed, signed and sent by clients; and social media native buttons, QR codes or URLs can initiate the call of Action.
Therefore, Blink is actually a type of URL, that is to say, calling Solana is a way to implement various on-chain operations without being picky about the front end. There is more room for imagination in the future.
Of course, Solana alone may not be able to accomplish this.
The technologies of Action and Blink were developed by Solana in collaboration with Dialect (@saydialect), while the voting, buying NFTs, and SWAP mentioned above may require Solana’s own ecological projects to provide functions.
For example, Sphere is used for donations, Tensor is used for buying NFTs, and Jupiter may be used for exchanging coins, etc. To put it bluntly, the capabilities are still provided by ecological projects, but the presentation can be done directly on social media.
You don’t have to worry about who provides the technology behind the scenes, everything has been encapsulated as much as possible.
The end of going out of the circle is all about socialization?
Coming back to the question at the beginning of this article, is this like Warpcaster?
In fact, judging from the results, they do reach the same goal, which is to embed on-chain operations in social media with one click, leaving the complexity to ourselves and leaving simplicity to users.
However, if you think about the recent trends in the cryptocurrency world, you will find that everyone wants to stand out, or let standing out itself become a point of FOMO for everyone, and they all coincidentally move towards a socialized route.
It’s just that each person’s talents and paths to achievement are different.
Farcaster is an independent company that has created the decentralized social media Warpcast for you to use. It uses the FRAME framework and embeds various on-chain operations, so that you can see what you get on Warpcaster without jumping.
TON is a platform that has taken advantage of the situation. It has Telegram, a mature social killer, for you to use. The built-in mini-programs make it possible to play mini-games, and the built-in TON wallet makes the experience even better.
In comparison, Solana is more like making friends with everyone. It doesn't do social media itself, nor does it have any social media. Instead, it provides another possibility of elegant parasitism - any popular, mainstream and commonly used social media can be embedded through Blink; I don't care about traffic, I just borrow the huge existing traffic.
In comparison, Twitter is more mainstream, and encrypted Twitter posts have their own audience and circle. Choosing to make efforts here first can also be considered a competitive advantage.
However, it is hard to tell which one is better, as each company has its own advantages and audiences. But one thing is certain:
Everyone thinks similarly that social support is indispensable to breaking out of the circle.
At a time when the crypto experience is still poor, expanding new colonies to attract more users is a necessary step.
Smart as you are, whose spaceship will you board?
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