gm,

I keep on seeing „tax payer funded institution leaving X for Bluesky“ announcements, eg, many German universities, and I gotta say that they have done something extremely right about the communication. The fact that their marketing has positioned them as „X for people who fight for democracy“ is crazy strong.

That said, I can understand why you‘d want to leave X to signal association to civil rights values etc.

Honestly though I think rationally you can‘t justify substituting X for Bluesky as this is just serving a very specific crowd too, and since BS is nowhere close to being a main stream social media either.

I say this purely out of self interest. I think it‘d make sense for us too to be an X substitute. I also want important institutions to join us because we‘re better at signaling political support for some values

I also heard from friends who work in academia that many researchers independently moved to BlueSky. I think it makes sense as academia is - on average - more left-leaning, and also the way Elon Musk is being portrayed in Polish media is very negative.

Speaking about Kiwi being an X substitute, I think we have the right culture and content to position ourselves against CT & X in general. And if Jason's latest essay [1] is a canary in the coal mine, seems like many people in our industry are already tired of Twitter.

[1] https://news.kiwistand.com/stories?index=0x67ab95ffc2f5fcb16d013a0e1e18f0b1ea6e039fe15994a8e53d67943cd2f82ffa2e3df5&t=1739780624201

I also heard from friends who work in academia that many researchers independently moved to BlueSky. I think it makes sense as academia is - on average - more left-leaning, and also the way Elon Musk is being portrayed in Polish media is very negative.

Honestly for me it makes no sense. This is public money that is being spent to maintain a public account.

I don't understand the choice of using BS, even if the individuals in academia are more left-leaning, that is just a personal preference then to use BS.

Why aren't they then also using public funds to, I don't know, create a Farcaster account?

The reason why it made sense to use X and Facebook is because there is a mandate to inform the public and you necessarily have to do that on the platform with the biggest reach, but I don't think you can spend public money just to implement your personal preference. BS has nowhere near the numbers to be in the same league as X or FC. I think this is a misuse of funds.

The reason why it made sense to use X and Facebook is because there is a mandate to inform the public and you necessarily have to do that on the platform with the biggest reach, but I don't think you can spend public money just to implement your personal preference

+1, if they want to share the results of their research or discuss it with the public, they should do it on the most popular platforms imo. Plus X is the place that's being followed by journalists, so if the story is good, it can be picked by outlets.

***

Btw we had a weekend conversation in our Telegram channel regarding Base projects leaving for Solana. As Nickolas pointed out - Unlonely, Time dot Fun and Drakula were heavily supported by Base but left for Solana.

Why is that? Aren't Base users interested in their products but Solana users are? Or is the grass always greener on the other side, and after initial attention pump they get when switching chains, it's the same old grind to get any users?

+1, if they want to share the results of their research or discuss it with the public, they should do it on the most popular platforms imo. Plus X is the place that's being followed by journalists, so if the story is good, it can be picked by outlets.

Yes, but you are speaking about individual researchers. I'm speaking about, for example, a German university moving to Blue Sky, which I think is a misuse of funds.

I think individual researchers can have the freedom to post wherever they want, unless it is not during their work time.

I anyways want to understand what can be done here, because I think it is a misuse of time and money, public money, to just create these accounts on BlueSky.

And here we are just discussing this because we feel unhappy about it, but I would actually like to push back more and put my frustration into action, because I really don't think these people should spend the public money to create accounts on BlueSky.

nd here we are just discussing this because we feel unhappy about it, but I would actually like to push back more and put my frustration into action, because I really don't think these people should spend the public money to create accounts on BlueSky.

Going to Bluesky due to your political views is akin to admitting you want to live in an echo chamber. This is the real threat to Democracy. Furthermore, I strongly believe that universities should become less political.

tw we had a weekend conversation in our Telegram channel regarding Base projects leaving for Solana. As Nickolas pointed out - Unlonely, Time dot Fun and Drakula were heavily supported by Base but left for Solana.

As I mentioned on Telegram, I believe the Base team needs to reevaluate its processes for selecting projects to support. There are 3 cases of projects where Base has invested in and/or promoted, and their teams ultimately abandoned it for Solana. The exit of 2 of these cases was quite "loud," with lengthy posts on Twitter stating how Base is dead and Solana is the future. It's important to note that none of these three projects had any significant traction; their noisy departure was likely the most attention they ever received. Meanwhile, there are projects like Frenpet, which has real users, whose founder has to publicly complain on Twitter that he has been building since Base was launched, and his project isn't even included in Base's Ecosystem directory.

I understand that the team receives hundreds of messages daily about new projects, and they can’t support all of them, so they need some signal. However, their process has clearly proven to be flawed.

When I first started discussing Auth by Watchen (a free forever, open-source project), I reached out to some people from Base to connect me with builders. All I was told was to "post it on the Base Builders channel." I thought, "Oh, I never considered that; what a revelation!" I'm sure the person I was speaking with had the best intentions, but how is this helpful? I later publicly casted to Jesse about the project, and he actually recasted it, which was incredibly helpful (and exactly what I wanted to do to raise awareness). Another person from the Telegram group had a similar experience.

How is it only Monday?

The commenting isn't quite prepared for full discussion threads yet. Need inline replies @timdaub.eth!

It's important to note that none of these three projects had any significant traction; their noisy departure was likely the most attention they ever received.

Wondering how many founders are just blaming the chain for their lack of PMF. I actually thought that Unlonely would crush it on Solana because Brian's unhinged energy and token-focused product seemed like a perfect fit there. But seems like the loud, bridge burning departure hasn't been effective.

Meanwhile, there are projects like Frenpet, which has real users, whose founder has to publicly complain on Twitter that he has been building since Base was launched, and his project isn't even included in Base's Ecosystem directory.

It's the first time I ever heard about this project. Checked their Twitter page and they have 23k+ followers, and some of them are v. legit people from the industry. So if I were working in Base and saw such a project, I'd reach out ASAP.

I imagine they might have been off the Base's radar because they're not active on Farcaster. Which ofc shouldn't happen - Farcaster still represents only a small % of crypto builders world, and Base should have their eyes open, and make it super easy for quality builders to get support.

I lately spoke with their team, and they said they have this "Base Amplification Request" form (https://buildonbase.deform.cc/getstarted/) which seems like a move in the right direction. But there are probably many more things to be done, including stuff like helping your founders get podcast spots or even run your own Base Weekly pod, going through the most interesting apps and founders of the week.

How is it only Monday?

The commenting isn't quite prepared for full discussion threads yet. Need inline replies @timdaub.eth!

Should we have inline replies or do you think it's also possible to have a better quoting feature like Discourse has it for example?

RE: Base... Coinbase can't decide who leaves or stays on the platform. I think the fact that 3 entrepreneurs they previously supported left while many who have not, feel unsupported by Base is primarily a factor of how good those 3 entrepreneurs are at getting attention, not just via social media stunts but having good cold emails, DMs, irl meetups, etc.

My starting question would be: what does it mean to be "supported by Base" vs "not supported by Base"? Are we just talking about Tweets from Jesse? Is there something more we would hope they do?

I've found that team always open to suggestions and they just aquihired Xen to put him in charge of builder success, so if there is something we'd like to see changed, its a great time for this discussion and to give that team feedback.

t's the first time I ever heard about this project. Checked their Twitter page and they have 23k+ followers, and some of them are v. legit people from the industry. So if I were working in Base and saw such a project, I'd reach out ASAP.

Yeah, Frenpet is legit, and I've heard that people who played the game from the beginning made a lot of money from it. So, believing that people can only make money on Solana projects right now is completely misguided. Ok, you don't need Frenpet to see that this belief is downright stupid, but having an example makes it clearer, lol.

imagine they might have been off the Base's radar because they're not active on Farcaster. Which ofc shouldn't happen - Farcaster still represents only a small % of crypto builders world, and Base should have their eyes open, and make it super easy for quality builders to get support.

100% this. Farcaster is great, but under no circumstances should they focus on that.

lately spoke with their team, and they said they have this "Base Amplification Request" form (https://buildonbase.deform.cc/getstarted/) which seems like a move in the right direction. But there are probably many more things to be done, including stuff like helping your founders get podcast spots or even run your own Base Weekly pod, going through the most interesting apps and founders of the week.

I didn't know about this initiative. It's bullish and clearly in the right direction.

E: Base... Coinbase can't decide who leaves or stays on the platform. I think the fact that 3 entrepreneurs they previously supported left while many who have not, feel unsupported by Base is primarily a factor of how good those 3 entrepreneurs are at getting attention, not just via social media stunts but having good cold emails, DMs, irl meetups, etc.

That's a really good observation. These individuals are quite good at attracting attention from people "behind the scenes." Good for them; that's a valuable skill. However, it clearly doesn't attract users. Perhaps they should jump to B2B instead of jumping to another chain, lol.

've found that team always open to suggestions and they just aquihired Xen to put him in charge of builder success, so if there is something we'd like to see changed, its a great time for this discussion and to give that team feedback.

Sorry, this is totally irrelevant, but ROAM's NFT about their launch is one of my favorite NFTs. It's an amazing piece of work.