Lens Front-End Engagement Breakdown

Decentralized social (DeSoc) breaks up traditional social tech stacks resulting in separate applications for the underlying social graph data and the front ends which present data to users. Since a user’s posts, friends, and overall social graph can be displayed by any application, users are free to choose any front end to engage with their network (termed a portable social graph).

However, this user mobility introduces significant competition to the front-end layer not experienced in traditional social apps. This is because network effect advantages are retained at the social graph layer (protocols like Lens) while front ends lack strong moats to retain users.

These competitive forces are evident in the shift in engagement across Lens Protocol front ends — especially as new users entering the ecosystem have dried up, accentuating the migration of existing users across front ends.

Top Lens Front Ends

Lenster

Coming out of the original Lens hackathon, Lenster is a browser-based application with features similar to Twitter. Since launching, Lenster has accounted for roughly 30-50% of all the weekly posts made on Lens and over 90% of the browser-based Lens posts. Over the last four weeks, weekly Lenster posts are up 44% outpacing the 7% growth of the next largest front end by posts, Phaver.