On May 2nd, the Web3 content publishing platform Mirror announced its acquisition by Paragraph. The Mirror team will continue to operate independently and will shift its focus to the development of Kiosk, a Web3 social application based on Farcaster. Reflective Technologies Inc., the parent company of Mirror, revealed that it has raised $10 million in funding from Electric Capital, with additional support from a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures, and Variant.
Mirror was launched in 2021 and quickly became an important creative platform and tool in the Web3 field. However, due to various factors such as positioning, development direction, and products, its market share declined rapidly. Currently, the main official content and creator platform in the Web3 field is Medium, and Paragraph, as Mirror’s main competitor in the Web3 creator field, has successfully acquired it. In this article, Odaily will interpret the past and present of Mirror and its latest product, Kiosk.
The Origin and Development of Mirror
Mirror was founded by Denis Nazarov, former partner of a16z crypto. In late 2020, Mirror released its initial product prototype. Mirror stores content on Arweave, and many people understand it as a Web3 version of Medium or Substack. It is a “decentralized” content publishing platform, although it is not particularly outstanding in terms of technology and imagination. Content creation platforms are already a highly competitive market. How does Mirror plan to stand out with its innovative approach?
At that time, Mirror’s answer was to focus on the toB (business-to-business) sector, as a crowdfunding and media tool for DAOs. Mirror described itself as “the essential web3 toolkit for sharing and funding anything. From writing about your latest idea to building a home for the next big DAO.”
In addition to content creation, what other functions does Mirror provide?
Firstly, Mirror supports the sale of NFTs for works. If a user purchases an NFT, it serves as a reward to the creator (Mirror takes a 2.5% commission). It also supports crowdfunding for projects and token issuance.
In summary, Mirror hopes that all projects in need of crowdfunding can be published and funded on its platform, and that progress and updates can be made through Mirror. Some well-known examples include The Krause House (crowdfunded 1000 ETH, but has already soft-rugged), the film Ethereum: The Infinite Garden (crowdfunded 1035 ETH), and the wallet Balance Wallet (crowdfunded 883 ETH).
Pure or Lacking in Features
It is worth noting that in the early stages of the product, Mirror did not have common features found on content platforms. This includes features such as subscriptions, reading statistics, and portals. Creators cannot directly analyze and promote their content, and readers or users find it difficult to track their favorite creators. Creators had to rely on other platforms for promotion, while subscription and analytics features required the use of third-party tools.
The Mirror team believed that these features were application-layer requirements and should be left to the community to develop. The team focused on building the underlying services. Since the data is published on Arweave without any restrictions, all developers and users can access the data. Therefore, the development of advanced products and features in the ecosystem is left to the community.
However, delegating the development of these features to the community does not mean that the Mirror team is letting things go freely. The Mirror team will communicate with teams that develop excellent Mirror add-on products and invite them to join the Mirror DAO to co-build the ecosystem.
Changing Directions
Mirror achieved impressive results in the toB field, but in August 2022, it announced the removal of all NFT and crowdfunding-related features and returned to the crowded toC (business-to-consumer) market. However, the following year, it launched the “Subscribe to Mint” feature. The reasons behind these puzzling moves may be related to regulatory pressures as the team is based in the United States, but the truth is unknown.
On the other hand, the narrative of DAOs is no longer as popular as during the bull market of 2021, and there has been a flood of crowdfunding and token issuance products. As a result of various factors, Mirror gradually lost market share.
Shifting to Kiosk
After the acquisition of Mirror by Paragraph, the latter will take over the management of Mirror’s products, design system, and brand. The Mirror team will shift its focus to developing Kiosk, a Web3 social application based on Farcaster.
Currently, Mirror has not disclosed the details of the project. According to Odaily, the key information about Kiosk is as follows: “Kiosk is a new Farcaster client that combines social media with on-chain features. It allows users to socialize and conduct on-chain transactions simultaneously. Through Kiosk, users can easily turn images into NFTs, discover and purchase assets collected by friends, and gather like-minded collectors and community members in token-driven channels or group chats.
The goal of Kiosk is to bridge the gap between on-chain social interactions and transactions, enabling users to seamlessly trade and interact on social media and promote the development of decentralized social media.”
Based on the above content, it can be seen that this product aims to empower users with the ability to issue and trade assets on social media. Its target audience has also shifted towards communities. Currently, users can join the Waitlist on Mirror to mint official announcement articles as NFTs.
