Web3 content veteran Mirror was acquired, explaining its transformation process and new social product Kiosk

On May 2, Web3 content publishing platform Mirror announced that it was acquired by Paragraph. The Mirror team will continue to operate independently and shift its focus to developing Kiosk, a Farcaster-based Web3 social application. Mirror parent company Reflective Technologies Inc. revealed it raised $10 million from Electric Capital, with additional support from a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures, and Variant.

Mirror launched internal testing in 2021 and quickly became an important creation platform and tool in the Web3 field. However, due to various factors such as positioning, development route, and products, its market share dropped rapidly. Currently, the most important official content and creator platform is Medium, and Paragraph, Mirror’s main competitor in the field of Web3 creators, has also successfully completed its acquisition. Odaily Planet Daily will explain the past and present life of Mirror and the latest product Kiosk in this article.

Mirror past and present life

Mirror was founded by Denis Nazarov, a former partner of a16z crypto. At the end of 2020, Mirror released its initial product prototype. Mirror stored the content on Arweave, and most people Understood as the Web3 version of Medium or Substack, it is a "decentralized" content publishing platform, but this is not outstanding in terms of technology and imagination. Content creation platforms are already a red ocean. What innovative route does Mirror want to rely on to stand out? A tight siege?

At that time, Mirror’s answer was toB, as a crowdfunding and media tool for DAO. Mirror's self-explanation at the time was: "This is the essential web3 toolkit for sharing and funding for anything. From writing content about your latest idea, to building a home for the next big DAO. (The essential web3 toolkit for sharing and funding anything. From writing about your latest idea, to building a home for the next big DAO)"

So in addition to content creation, what other functions does Mirror provide?

First of all, Mirror supports the sale of NFT for works. If the user purchases this NFT, it will be used as a reward to the creator (Mirror divides it into 2.5%). In addition, it also supports direct crowdfunding (crowdfund) for the project. You can also Issue coins.

In short, Mirror hopes that all projects that require crowdfunding will be published on its platform, raise funds, and update information on direction and progress through Mirror. The more well-known ones include basketball teams. The Krause House (crowdfunding 1000 ETH, soft rug), the movie Ethereum: The Infinite Garden (crowdfunding 1035 ETH), Balance Wallet (crowdfunding 883 ETH), etc.

Purely lack of functions

It is worth noting that in the early stages of the product, Mirror did not have the common functions on the content platform. Including subscriptions, readings, portals and other functions, creators cannot directly analyze and promote them, and readers or users cannot directly track them. Creators need to use other platforms for promotion, and functions such as subscription and analysis need to use third-party tools.

The Mirror team believes that the above are all requirements of the application layer, and hopes to leave them to the community. The team will only build the underlying services. Since the data is released in Arweave without any restrictions, all developers and users can read the data, so "advanced" ecological products and functional iterations are left to the community.

However, leaving the development of the above functions to the community does not mean that the Mirror team will let them go freely. The Mirror team will communicate with the teams that have developed excellent Mirror add-on products and invite them to join the Mirror DAO to build an ecosystem together.

Route Swing

Mirror has achieved good data and achievements in the above-mentioned toB field, but in August 2022, Mirror announced that it would remove all NFT and crowdfunding related functions, and returned to In the red sea of ​​pure toC. But the Subscribe to Mint function was launched the following year. This series of mysterious operations may be related to the fact that the team is located in the United States and is affected by regulatory pressure, but we don’t know the truth.

On the other hand, the narrative of DAO is no longer as hot as the 21-year bull market. Crowdfunding and currency-issuing products have emerged one after another. Mirror has gradually lost market share under the combined effect of multiple factors.

Moving to Kiosk

Paragraph will take over management of Mirror’s products, design systems and brand following its acquisition of Mirror. The Mirror team will move to Kiosk, a Farcaster-based Web3 social application.

Currently, Mirror has not disclosed the details of the project. Odaily summarizes the key contents of its existing information as follows: "Kiosk is a new Farcaster client that combines social networking with the chain. It allows users to Be social while conducting on-chain transactions. With Kiosk, users can easily convert images into NFTs, discover and purchase assets from friends’ collections, and gather like-minded collectors and community members in token-driven channels or group chats.

Kiosk’s goal is to break the barrier between on-chain socialization and on-chain transactions, enabling users to transact and interact on social media more seamlessly, thereby promoting the development of decentralized social media.”

Based on the above content, it can be seen that this product aims to give users the ability to issue and trade assets on social media, and the service target has also turned to the community. Currently, users can enter the Waitlist by casting the NFT of the official announcement article in Mirror .

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