I started thinking more about mini-apps last night after reading @ted's cast about her in-app Paragraph feedback and then reading YB's essay on mini-apps. dwr has been heat-checking mini-apps and wondering what people would build, if anything at all and would users really want to use an app inside of an app? I don't have those answers but I do think in-app reading is the first use case that I got excited about.

I started working on this concept for an in-app reader. This could be a Paragraph app or could work with any URL like a Read It Later service. The cool thing about mini-apps in Farcaster would be to deeply tie together the social graph to create an experience where bouncing back and forth between the main app and the reading app was additive in a way that would be difficult as a standalone app. To be honest, I'm not sure if this concept has yet crossed that bar but it feels close to something that if you spent a little time with it could get there.

The wild thing is that I was concepting this as an interactive prototype using Claude Artifacts. You can check it out here. Then after I prorotyped, I wrote the doc.

Together is a mini-app designed to elevate the reading experience within the Farcaster ecosystem. This document explores how Together leverages Farcaster's unique features to create a more engaging and social reading experience.

Content Optimization and Dual-Mode Consumption

Together offers two primary modes of content consumption: Reading and Listening. The Reading mode presents articles in a clean, distraction-free format, with customizable typography and color schemes to enhance readability. The Listening mode provides AI-generated audio narration, allowing users to consume content hands-free.

By operating as a mini-app within Farcaster, Together can directly access shared links and metadata, streamlining the content ingestion process. For example, as links are shared to the Farcaster network they can be processed and cached for both readability and text to speech.

Social Features Native to Farcaster

Together's most compelling aspect is its deep integration with Farcaster's social mechanics. Comments, reactions, and discussions are synchronized with the Farcaster ecosystem, allowing users to engage in conversations about the content they're consuming with or without the app.

The app enables users to create highlights and annotations within articles, which can then be shared as Farcaster Frames. These Frames serve as focal points for discussion, allowing other users to comment on and engage with specific passages or ideas from the article in app or on Warpcast.

Together introduces a "Now Reading" section that displays all Farcasters who have read the article in the last 48 hours sorted by peaple you follow. It includes icons indicating whether a user has cast about or commented on the article. Tapping on a user's entry in this section takes you directly to their related cast, facilitating easy access to discussions and perspectives from your network. This feature leverages Farcaster's existing social graph, making it effortless for users to discover and engage with content that's currently resonating within their community.

Farcaster Frames Integration

Together uses Farcaster Frames to extend its functionality beyond the app interface. Users can share article previews, reading progress, and highlighted quotes directly in their Farcaster feeds using custom Frames. These Frames are interactive, allowing other users to jump directly into the reading experience or participate in prediction markets related to the article's content.

Cast Actions and Composer Integration

Together extends Farcaster's native cast composer with additional features tailored for sharing and discussing written content. When a user shares an article, the app provides reading time estimates, extracts key quotes, and suggests channels based on the article's content and its reception within the Farcaster network. It also allows you to share the audio version.

Cast actions allow users to quickly activate Reading or Listening modes, add articles to a "Read Later" queue, or initiate collaborative reading sessions with their Farcaster connections. These actions are deeply integrated with Farcaster's existing interaction models, making Together feel like a natural extension of the platform rather than a separate application.

Mini-apps

While mini-apps in Farcaster is yet to be realized, a rapid concept like Together makes me hopeful. It offers a glimpse into how deeply integrated, purpose-built applications could enhance user engagement and create new forms of social interaction within the Farcaster ecosystem.

As Farcaster continues to evolve, experiments like mini-apps and other new developer legos will be important for exploring the boundaries of what's possible within a decentralized social network.

Social Reading

Luckily for all of my readers, while I loved spending an hour in my studio last night thinking about mini-apps and prototyping one with the help of Claude, Paragraph has expressed interest on building a mini-app. So we might get to see how some of this plays out after all.