I just joined Warpcast. You can find my profile, here.
At first glance, Warpcast is going to look a lot like X. But instead of tweets, you cast. There are also various topic channels, similar to how Reddit works. But the most important difference is that Warpcast is a client for the Farcaster protocol, which is a social network built on Ethereum. This means that it is a decentralized social network.
You won't see of any this if you decide to sign up. All of the esoteric crypto things are hidden in the background. But it's there. And it ultimately means that, as a user, you get to own your online identity and whatever content and following you create. Meaning, you can take it with you if you decide you no longer want to use Warpcast and instead want to access the network through another client.
It also means that software developers now have a real incentive to build things on top of the protocol, because unlike with a centralized service like X, they can be confident that they won't get the rug pulled out from underneath them. And herein lies the feature that will ultimately lead to an enormous amount of new ideas and innovation.
In real estate terms, you can think of developing on top of a centralized service like building within a theme park owned by a single company. The theme park might want you to build on their land, right now, but if at some point it no longer suits their business needs, they can always change the game on you.
On the other hand, building in a city on land you own outright is a lot like developing on top of a decentralized service. Sure, you need roads and municipal infrastructure to service your land (think of these like the above protocol), but you generally don't need to worry that the city might wake up one day and remove all of this important infrastructure. It's a given. And that's a fundamental difference, even if the buildings might look the same in the end.
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson once explained it in this way, “don’t be a Google bitch, don’t be a Facebook bitch, and don’t be a Twitter bitch. Be your own bitch.” What he meant by this is that if you build on someone else's land, then you're opening yourself up to being their bitch. What you want to be is your own bitch. And similar to how our cities work, this is the potential of decentralized services.
As I write this post, I currently have 6 followers on Warpcast. If you'd like to be number 7, you can follow me here.
Since I started blogging last year, I’ve been getting regular emails from both people I know and from readers I don’t know (but hope to one day meet) asking for advice on buying real estate. Usually somebody sends me the link to a place they’re thinking about buying, and they want to know what I think about the property and the neighborhood.
I’m more than happy to help when I can and I try to be brutally honest in terms of what I think. What’s interesting about this dynamic though, is that I don’t have a vested interest in any of the outcomes. Whether I tell that person I love the place or that it’s shit, I don’t stand to gain anything. And that means I can be brutally honest. It’s for this same reason that customer reviews on websites can work so well.
Because on the flip side, if I make money when you buy, then guess what, I’m going to want you to buy. That’s how it works for any industry–from financial services to real estate to retail. That’s why some stores will promote the fact that their sales people are not on commission. Although you could argue that those sales people are then less motivated to help you.
In any event, all of this got me wondering if there isn’t some way to take customer reviews to the next level. Could a decentralized sales model work?
Last year I had a conference call with one of the chief officers of one of the top 3 real estate websites in the US and I was told that they had actually tested a “social buying model.” It ultimately failed, but it strikes me as an interesting concept. Reviews are starting to feel a bit dated now on the social web, but I think the idea of crowdsourced input is here to stay.
Image: Flickr