Lens Protocol is much more than a decentralized social network built on the Polygon blockchain because it allows you, with a single profile (NFT), to log in to all supported sites. True Web3. Lens Protocol went mainnet in May 2022.
Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, is among the creators of Lens Protocol, his idea is to guarantee control over one's digital identity and full decentralization (without any censorship).
Kulechov spoke about his new platform at LisCon 2021, decrying the problem of companies owning and monetizing user content. According to him, Web 2.0 social media platforms are now obsolete systems and Web3 guarantees users ownership of content and their profile. Basically when you use X (Twitter), Facebook, TikTok, Youtube or Instagram your content (and data) is saved on centralized servers. If the service goes permanently down, you have lost your content. On the other hand, on Lens the contents (text, images, videos, music) are saved on your NFT profile and are always accessible. Furthermore, if you change the avatar or cover of your profile, it will be changed on all the dapps you connect to.
HOW LENS V1 WORKS
When you create a profile, you create a dynamic, composable NFT. This NFT stores all your content (comments, likes and reposts). The profile is linked to your address (on the Polygon mainnet). As a content creator, you will have control over who can "collect" your publications. The protocol also allows you to monetize on social media. You may require others to pay a fee to obtain certain content. You can also create subscriptions.
Almost all interactions function as ERC-721 contracts. When a profile is created, an NFT of the profile is minted. When the profile receives the first follow, the NFT Follow contract is initiated by tracking the follower.
Same thing for the Collect and Reference contract. The Follow modules are activated when you follow another profile, the collection modules when you save publications, and finally the reference modules are used to manage mirrors. If you have multiple profiles, you can manage multiple social media accounts. Following someone gets you a Follow NFT. Includes a rarity rating and utility. One possible benefit is the right to vote, if the person you follow offers it. Publishing is the term Lens Protocol uses to refer to content. You can post videos, photos, music (mp3) and text to various sites supported by Lens (of course they are stored in your NFT social profile).
It is possible to collect the publications of other users (freely or for a fee) and the mirror function re-proposes the contents of other users on your feed.
NEW UPDATE LENS V2
After the creation of the V1 profiles of which there are around 120,000, the V2 ones are now being worked on. There will be many updates. With this update it will be possible:
-Follow (directly a publication)
-Create external NFT (Opensea) directly on Lens
-Buy and sell ERC-20 tokens or NFT
-Participate in a DAO
-Donate with Gitcoin
-Buy a land from Sandbox or Decentraland
-Play game
-Receive paid DM
-Providing liquidity to a DeFi protocol
With Lens V2 it will be possible to share value between users, algorithms, curators and apps. For example, someone can post on Lenster, another user can comment, and yet another can collect that post, perhaps on another dapp like Buttrfly, where the algorithm presents the content to a curator, who brings in additional audiences. In this situation, the original creator may want to share revenue to reward the users, applications, and algorithms that contribute to each stage of the development of these business models. This new level of programmable monetization can be extended to reward any user or app that adds value to the action. It gives people the ability to implement monetization models that reward charitable actions and altruistic behavior, which in turn supports collaboration between networks and sustainable ecosystem growth on a shared network. There will also be greater compatibility between profiles thanks to the ERC-6551 standard. With Lens V2 "collections" can be accumulated on profiles instead of the owner's address. This functionality will, for example, allow you to purchase virtual land and that land could have a Lens profile and open a mailbox to communicate with other virtual land. Furthermore, all social interactions will take place between profiles. For example if you move your profile from one address to another, your social network moves with your profile. The Lens V2 protocol will allow Lens profiles to block certain actions on their profiles. On-chain profile blocking means that the blocked profile cannot follow that profile, comment, quote, collect or conduct any overt action on your content. This feature helps users build trust and confidence among Lens users.
SOME DAPPS TO TRY
-Lensfrens: site for searching for profiles with common interests, based on the use of your profile (i.e. the contents you post)
-Buttrfly: social network similar to Facebook (uncensored obviously and accessible with your own Lens profile)
-Lenster: Similar to Buttrfly, perhaps the main dapp
-Orb: app that always indexes content (text, music, video, etc)
-Lenstube: as the name itself suggests, it is a dapp that indexes video content. Similar to Youtube. Clearly when you upload a video, being hosted on your Lens profile, it will also appear elsewhere (on other social networks)
-Riffapp: audio streaming
-Dumpling (Galverse): Video streaming
POSITIVES
Nobody can delete your posts or censor them, this is certainly a good thing. Furthermore, there is no data collection in this network. You have full control of your data, including its monetization and visualization, as long as the app is compatible with the Lens protocol. The protocol is open source so it can be improved over time.
DOWNSIDES
It can be said that decentralization can also lead to the dissemination of material of dubious taste. Furthermore, there is not a lot of users yet. However, the main downside is that while the data is saved to your NFT profile, publications have a unique ContentURI that points to distributed file storage platforms like IPFS or Arweave that host all the original files. As a result, although more difficult than the canonical Web2 social networks, the content of any user could be altered. Security issues are closely related to the storage issue. The original files could be lost or damaged if they are not stored on a blockchain (from this point of view there is room for improvement).
________________________________________________________________________________
TIP OF THE MONTH
Subscribe for free to the "The Crypto Gateway" newsletter (you just have to enter your email): The Crypto Gateway (Newsletter)
You can read the main weekly events in the crypto world and the hottest topic threads on Twitter. You can also sign up to the "Learn" platform and earn "cippini" (it is a fictitious token that is redeemable on their platform in exchange for discounts and material goods such as t-shirts, mugs, etc.). How to earn "cippini"? Every Friday you receive the newsletter and you can make a claim if you have signed up on their learn platform. Alternatively you can simply subscribe to the newsletter via your email and read the main Crypto news of the week (DeFi, Price Action, Airdrop, etc)! By signing up, every Friday, you can receive weekly recaps and the best of Twitter threads like this one:
Are you interested in ways to earn crypto bonus? Check it out here: Some Sites To Earn Crypto Bonus (Old & New)