Rivals in the Web3 publishing space, Mirror and Paragraphs have an agreement that permits Mirror’s team to function as a stand-alone business with a social media-only focus.
- Competing platform Paragraph is buying Web3 publishing app Mirror.
- The Mirror team will keep running their own business and will concentrate on creating “Kiosk,” a Web3 social application built on Farcaster that combines e-commerce and blockchain technology.
- The founder of Paragraph has stated that Mirror and Paragraph would eventually combine into a single, cohesive product suite.
The business that created a line of blockchain-based publishing tools, Paragraph, has purchased its main rival in the Web3 creation market, Mirror.
The Mirror team is changing its direction to concentrate just on Web3 social media, although it will still function as a distinct business. After Mirror, the team’s primary project will be “Kiosk,” a Farcaster protocol-based microblogging site that mimics Twitter.
One of the biggest successes of blockchain’s entry into the creator economy was Mirror. The platform, which debuted in 2020, gives authors the opportunity to earn money from their writing by minting individual pieces as NFTs. It was intended to be a more decentralized and impervious to censorship substitute for Web2 publishing platforms such as Medium.
Released in 2022, Paragraph had features with Mirror, but it was more like Substack, emphasizing periodicals and newsletters above individual pieces.
According to Colin Armstrong, the creator of Paragraph, his product was different from Mirror in that it first aimed to target a Web2 audience more. Armstrong, who works as a programmer at Google and Coinbase and has written for tech magazines, says he also concentrated more on his product’s referral networks and other features that would help authors reach a wider audience. According to Armstrong, Mirror, on the other hand, succeeded in building a more robust brand and design language.
According to the founder of Paragraph, both Mirror and Paragraph have ultimately changed and ultimately arrived at a somewhat comparable location. It’s often unclear to users which option to choose, in my opinion.
On the other hand, Mirror has redirected much of its attention on Kiosk, its Web3 social network.
Kiosk is intended to be the marriage of social and business, according to Denis Nazarov, the creator of Mirror. Nazarov and the rest of his team have sold the product so they can concentrate more on their new platform, although they will continue to serve as “advisor” to Paragraph.
Armstrong claims that the number of users on Paragraph is “substantially smaller” than that of Mirror, and that his team of three is just half as large as Mirror’s six-person staff. Although the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed by either team, Armstrong claims that Union Square Ventures, an investor in both businesses, suggested the concept.
Everyone is thrilled with how things turned out. Armstrong stated that while Mirror pursues their new venture, the Mirror product will continue under the direction of a publisher that is totally committed to the field. “It’s obviously fantastic for us because it greatly enhances both our user base and products.
Armstrong claims that Mirror and Paragraph will ultimately combine into a single, more efficient product.
The Mirror team’s attempt to further integrate e-commerce and blockchain technology with social media is called Kiosk.
In a technical sense, it is a “client” for Farcaster, an Ethereum-based X-like application. Kiosk and other clients serve as special lenses through which to see the underlying data of Farcaster; in addition to offering richer views of Farcaster material, clients have the ability to contribute new functionality and use cases to the protocol.
According to Nazarov, there is a chance for an experience where you can see what assets people are purchasing in addition to what they are like, saying, and who they are following. We believe that asset ownership and collecting is a social construct in addition to a commercial one.
When Mirror originally started, it had an elegant UI by the standards of the cryptocurrency sector, and Nazarov says he intends to apply the same design principles to Kiosk.
Kiosk’s primary purpose is to facilitate users’ ability to directly incorporate digital assets into their social network posts. Consider a post that makes mention of an NFT: In contrast to a traditional tweet or Facebook post, which would only have a jpeg image of the NFT, Kiosk would incorporate additional blockchain functionality within the image, such as the option to check the NFT’s blockchain address or make a direct purchase through the post.
According to Nazarov, UX played a significant role in preventing cryptocurrency from expanding to the next concentric circle of one million or ten million users. User experience is referred to as UX. We believe there is a great possibility for a unified social experience that incorporates e-commerce natively, especially in light of businesses like Farcaster that pioneer a mobile native experience.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
