Blinks Fantasies: Exploring the Most Promising Application Scenarios from the Ground Up

Author: Nan Zhi, Odaily Planet Daily

Last week, Solana, in collaboration with Dialect, launched a new feature called Blinks. Some view it as a groundbreaking new growth avenue for Solana, while others believe the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, leading to more fraudulent incidents. The discussion on how to use this new feature, how it integrates with the X platform, and how it can be applied in various scenarios to realize its true utility is still in the exploratory phase. Odaily will explore the real application scenarios of Blinks in this article.

Exploration of Underlying Logic

In what aspects does it play a role?

This section will focus solely on the X platform (Twitter). As a social networking platform, the usage scenario involves a small number of users posting project information (such as basic project details, data, progress, etc.) and opinions (such as research reports, calls to action, etc.), while the majority of users are places to obtain information and opinions.

In terms of content characteristics, it has:

• High immediacy, as users generally see the most recent information in the information stream, occasionally triggered by replies from followed users to earlier information;
• Strong virality, as long as the project party uses inducement to forward, it can achieve a wide range of dissemination, second only to instant messaging applications and short video platforms;
• Moderate personalization, as the objects of attention are self-selected by users, and the X platform has begun to incorporate content recommendation algorithms, but currently, the content produced mainly comes from self-selected objects of attention.

The actions of crypto users can be summarized as "collecting information from the personal attention or virally generated immediate information stream as a basis for further short- and long-term investment decisions." Therefore, the author believes that "immediacy" and "facilitating the purchase of valuable information" are the true battlegrounds for Blinks.

Here, "immediacy" refers to the shortest time for users to access information, and through Blinks, it also becomes the fastest in operation. "Facilitating the purchase of valuable information" means making readers feel "I need this information" through content, and using Blinks to shorten their thinking and operational time to encourage them to make a purchase.

In what stages does it play a role?

If we simplify the sales process of a product into three steps: reaching new users, converting new users, and awakening/renewing old users, at which stage does Blinks take effect?

• Reaching new users: Whether through self-promotion, advertising, or virality, none of these fall within the functions of Blinks itself. Although Meteora and Raydium have created rebate features specifically for Blinks to enhance publishing enthusiasm, due to issues of security and insufficient information, the author believes this module should still belong to the platform that Blinks relies on. Choosing which platform to build Blinks on and obtaining a sufficient user base is the primary key issue.
• Converting new users: Why have short video platform shopping been able to rise? Minimizing the purchase process after reaching the user's mindset is a key factor. After reaching the target user and letting them discover that a certain feature is exactly what they need, the author believes that Blinks can effectively enhance the conversion rate by directly prompting wallet payments. Potential cases will be elaborated in the next section.
• Awakening old users: The personalized attention on the X platform combined with the long-term reach potential can effectively awaken old users, having a certain effect in low-cost or non-paid scenarios.

Exploration of Potential Use Cases

Dividing the actions of crypto users into three categories: investment for profit, consumption, and others. The first two categories cover a wide range, while others, such as community governance, decentralized social networking, and blockchain games, typically occur through proprietary platforms and will not be discussed here.

Investment for Profit

In this scenario, the information users need may require speed or sufficient depth, and deep information often involves large investments, making it difficult to trust a direct payment link without adequate background checks, thus eliminating one option.

The high-speed information requirement usually corresponds to early meme tokens. Under what circumstances are users willing or dare to purchase? One situation is when the information source has sufficient credibility, while another is when the story has significant hype potential, allowing users to see opportunities for high returns on small investments.

The BOME and SLERF that emerged in March correspond to the above two types:

Darkfarms, as a long-term builder of PEPE, has the endorsement of past projects. When it uses Blinks to build donation or purchase channels, it can effectively attract user participation. Other similar credible individuals or organizations can also use Blinks to facilitate conversion.

SLERF corresponds to the conversion of hype narratives. Although it is not well-known, when it receives a high frequency of related event bombardment in the X platform's immediate information stream, a direct and fastest investment participation route is exactly what users need.

However, whether it is a highly credible information source or a breakthrough narrative, they are relatively small in proportion, and the higher the investment amount, the lower the achievable conversion rate. Therefore, the average effectiveness of Blinks in such scenarios is not high.

Consumption

The author believes that consumption is the scenario where Blinks can be widely applied. Personalized recommendations filter the user group, ensuring a potential buyer base, and the combination with content can "break through the user's mindset," achieving conversion through the shortest path, transforming from "clicking the little yellow cart below the video" to "clicking the Blinks below the article to make a purchase." Especially in areas such as value-added services, inducement purchases, and small-scale consumption, examples include:

• Value-added services: After Odaily publishes the article "Next Week's Token Unlock Overview," click the Blinks below to purchase advanced analysis "Will XX token unlock explode or be dumped early based on historical 20 unlock data review."
• Inducement purchases: After rigorous calculations using trading methods such as the theory of constraints, waves, West spiral, and Fibonacci, I discovered a brilliant bottom-buying point, click the Blinks below to purchase the winning secret.
• Small-scale consumption: Quickly betting on whether Trump or Biden will be elected president, or a certain artist posting a Blinks Mint link, etc.

When a project provides valuable information to users through this form, due to the repeatable reach capability of the X platform, when the same project's Blinks appears again next time, it can effectively realize the awakening and payment of old users.

Community Thoughts

@thesendcoin published a series of community ideas about Blinks on the X platform. In this section, the author presents some valuable or, in the author's opinion, more negatively significant ideas about Blinks.

Practical Type

Prediction Market

Airdrop Checker

Paid Chat (Superchats)

Community Traffic and Conversion

Paid Content Access

Advanced NFT Operations

Negative

Private message multi-signature requires multiple parties to verify identity and still needs to ensure link accuracy, which is not very meaningful.

Private message sales; the current market has basically no demand for NFT to be sold at a premium separately.

Destroying (useless) NFTs and tokens involves too many tokens, raising doubts about whether valuable coins will be implicated.