Introduction
It was Thanksgiving week, and we at NKN Headquarters were super thankful for the happy surprise of Clink – Future of Social app launching on NKN and BASE! In their words, Clink is a one of a kind web 3.0 social networking app that “unleash the future of social networking! Dive into a world where influencers and fans forge dynamic connections, build thriving communities, and co-create unparalleled value. Chat with unbeatable security, trade and earn together in an electrifying Web3 and blockchain universe.”
In the digital era, social networking has evolved into an integral part of our daily lives. But as we stand at the cusp of a new era with Web 3.0, the future of social networks is poised for a transformative leap. Are we really at the critical junction of the paradigm shift from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 in social networking, focusing on user privacy and data protection? So we chatted with the Clink team to find out more.
A chat with Clink team
Hey Clink team, you really surprised us! Please tell us a bit more about what Clink is?
Clink is a social networking app that users own their digital presence, both in terms of content they create, as well as the personal brand and equity associated with it. So on a very high level, here are the things you can do in Clink:
- Discover new social connections easily, either via direct invitation or through social network account association (for example, Twitter). There are billboards for the newest members, top-ranked members, trending members, and your friend circle.
- Chat to earn – you can buy, sell, and hold keys of your friends to earn through meaningful discussions and messaging.
- Chat privately and securely – your personal messages to friends and family are all end-to-end encrypted and never stored in the cloud. Nobody outside your chat can read them.
- Manage your own BASE blockchain wallet, see current assets and balance, as well as deposit and withdraw.
What are the motivations behind your building the Clink app?
Web 2.0 revolutionized the internet, making it interactive and user-generated. Social media giants like Facebook became the flag bearers of this era, creating platforms that connected millions. However, this connectivity came with a cost – user privacy. The business model of Web 2.0 social networks relied heavily on collecting and monetizing user data, often selling it to advertisers. This model not only compromised user privacy but also created an environment where these companies often found themselves in competition with their developer partners, leading to an ecosystem marked by mistrust and data vulnerabilities.
We believe in the new creator economy where everyone is a creator. We would like to enable the creators to monetize from their content, social brand and equity, without worrying about the platform taking a huge chunk. That’s basically it.
How does Clink stand out from the other SocialFi apps, such as friend.tech, New Bitcoin City, and Tomo.inc?
We realized that this SocialFi area is heating up a bit, chuckles. And we have a few aces up our sleeves:
- Get in early and earn: like most DeFi and SoFi projects, the early birds get the worm. Clink is still super early, and there are tons of potential for growth.
- Start small, aim big: Clink supports 1/1000 of a key, so you can hold a small portion of a high potential key that belongs to a celebrity or famous person.
- Safe and Secure: only you have access to the secret key, and nobody else, not even the Clink developers. True local web 3 wallet, your wallet’s secret key is never stored in servers.
- Just look, no pressure: you don’t have to link your Twitter account or deposit funds in order to use the app, so you can have a look around first and decide for yourself.
But this space is still so new, we truly believe there will be a lot of growth for all of us.
Why did you choose NKN as the communication platform?
We heard about NKN as the OG of web 3.0 communication network, and much respect! We saw you guys launched Universal Communication Service earlier this year, and thought that might work for our chat use. We can map a BASE wallet address to NKN ID, and then we can use the NKN network for sending chats without maintaining our own chat servers.
Then we dug a bit deeper into the NKN tech, and we really like what we found. We didn’t know you have that many nodes, and they are located all around the world. We hope our users will be global, so they can really benefit from the global distribution of the NKN network.
Integrating with NKN’s technology was super easy as well, we got it running in a few weeks. Of course there is more optimization we can do, in order to improve the performance and reliability of chat message delivery. So we hope we can get even more help down the road. So far, NKN’s Discord developer community has been awesome!
Why did you choose BASE blockchain for digital assets and transactions?
We were thinking about building on some kind of L2 network for Ethereum, since that is the sweet spot. You get maximal compatibility with Ethereum, while enjoying lower fees and higher throughput.
There are a lot of choices outta there, and it’s a bit confusing too. Chuckles. We like the fact that BASE originated from Coinbase, and is now widely supported by both centralized exchanges (Coinbase, Binance) as well mobile wallets (Metamask, Trust wallet). You can use the official BASE bridge to move assets between Ethereum mainnet and BASE chain, and it will become familiar once you try it.
The transaction fee and the confirmation speed are phenomenal, we love both. I guess that was the main reason we came for the BASE blockchain. And hopefully we will become one of the top apps building on the BASE chain, and one day to meet Brain Armstrong. chuckles
What is the future roadmap for Clink?
We got really great feedback from the early adopters of the Clink app, and we found there are tons of things we could add. But since we are a small team, we have to be laser focused on what we do at each stage of the app development.
For the short to medium term, we will try to enhance the user experience in bridging multiple web 3 social platforms, and enable asset trading across them. Lots of our users are new to the SocialFi space, so they get easily confused if the app is too complicated. We want to keep the app simple and intuitive, and not over-stuffed with millions of features.
Simple and cool, that is our motto.
Future of Web 3.0 social
Wow, that’s a lot of insights from the Clink team! Our team members are starting to get onboard and trying out the app. And NKN hopes to support more ecosystem development like Clink (a web 3.0 social networking app) and nRide (a web 3.0 ride hailing app).
The future of social networking in the Web 3.0 era is not just a technological shift but a reimagining of how we connect, share, and value our online interactions. By leveraging blockchain technology like NKN and BASE, the next generation of social networks can offer a platform that is secure, user-centric, and transparent. This shift promises to restore trust in online interactions, empower users, and pave the way for a more equitable digital world.
In this future, we are not just passive consumers of content but active participants in a digital ecosystem that values our privacy, rewards our contributions, and respects our autonomy. The Web 3.0 social network is not just a possibility; it is an imperative, a path towards a more connected yet secure, decentralized yet cohesive, digital society.
If you are interested in this future, please try out Clink! It’s available on iOS app store, Android Play Store, and as an Android APK download: