Original | Odaily Planet Daily

Author | Nan Zhi

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

Launched in 2021, Mirror 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 rapidly declined. The current main official content and creator platform is Medium, and Paragraph, as Mirror's main competitor in the Web3 creator field, has successfully completed its acquisition. This article from Odaily Planet Daily will interpret the past and present of Mirror and its latest product, Kiosk.

Mirror's Past and Present

Mirror was founded by Denis Nazarov, a former partner of a16z crypto. At the end of 2020, Mirror released its initial product prototype, storing content on Arweave. Most people understand it as a Web3 version of Medium or Substack, a "decentralized" content publishing platform. However, from a technical and imaginative perspective, this point is not outstanding. Content creation platforms are already a competitive field. What innovative path did Mirror want to take to stand out?

At that time, Mirror's answer was to focus on B2B, as a crowdfunding and media tool for DAOs. Mirror's self-description at the time was: "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, besides content creation, what other functions does Mirror provide?

First, Mirror supports the sale of NFTs for works, with the purchased NFT serving as a reward for the creator (Mirror takes a 2.5% cut). It also supports direct crowdfunding for projects and coin issuance.

In short, Mirror hopes that all projects in need of crowdfunding will be published on its platform, raise funds, and provide updates on direction and progress through Mirror. Some well-known examples include The Krause House (crowdfunding 1000 ETH, already soft rug), the movie Ethereum: The Infinite Garden (crowdfunding 1035 ETH), and the wallet Balance Wallet (crowdfunding 883 ETH).

Pure or Functionally Deficient

It is worth noting that in the early stages of the product, Mirror lacked common functions found on content platforms, such as subscription, reading statistics, and a portal. Creators could not directly analyze and promote their work, and readers or users also found it difficult to track directly. Creators needed to use other platforms for promotion, and functions such as subscription and analysis required third-party tools.

The Mirror team believed that the above were all application-layer demands that should be handled by the community, with the team focusing on building underlying services. Since data is published on Arweave without any restrictions, all developers and users can access the data, so the iteration of "advanced" products and functions in the ecosystem is left to the community.

However, delegating the development of the above functions to the community does not mean that the Mirror team is hands-off. The team will communicate with and invite teams that develop excellent Mirror add-on products to co-build the Mirror DAO ecosystem.

Swinging Roadmap

Mirror achieved impressive data and achievements in the B2B field mentioned above. However, in August 2022, Mirror announced the removal of all NFT and crowdfunding-related functions, returning to the purely B2C competitive field. But the following year, it launched the Subscribe to Mint feature. The reasons behind these puzzling operations may be related to the team being based in the United States and influenced by regulatory pressure, but the truth is unknown.

On the other hand, the narrative of DAOs has not been as hot as during the bull market of 2021, and crowdfunding and coin issuance products have emerged one after another. Due to various factors, Mirror gradually lost market share.

Transition to Kiosk

After Paragraph's acquisition of Mirror, Paragraph 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 project details. Odaily has summarized key information about it: "Kiosk is a new Farcaster client that combines social and on-chain elements. It allows users to socialize on-chain while conducting on-chain transactions. 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.

Kiosk aims to break down the barriers between on-chain socializing and on-chain transactions, enabling users to seamlessly trade and interact on social media, thereby promoting the development of decentralized social media."

Based on the above content, it can be seen that the product aims to empower users to issue and trade assets on social media, with the target audience shifting to the community. Currently, users can enter the Waitlist for NFTs by minting official announcement articles in Mirror.

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