【Paragraph】Substack for web3 / If you want to switch from Substack, which is at war with Twitter, is it Paragraph or...?
Paragraph is a web3 version of Substack. It is basically a newsletter service like Substack, but with the ability to NFT and sell posts like Mirror, and limited distribution with a token gate.
Good morning.
This is Mitsui, a web3 researcher.
Today, I researched "Paragraph.
Table of Contents."
1、Substack vs Twitter war
2、What is Paragraph?
- Function
- Outlook
3、I'm trying to use it myself
Substack vs. Twitter War
Paragraph is, simply put, the web3 version of Substack, but let me start by explaining the events that led me to research it.
Substack and Twitter have been fighting for about a month now, as I have written a bit about before.
Initially on Twitter
Unable to navigate to Substack link (warning displayed)
When I ego-subscribe to Substack, the word "newsletter" appears at the same time.
This occurred. This has been fixed, but since then
The number of impressions of tweets with Substack links dropped significantly
Twitter cards (OGP) for Substack links are not displayed
OGPs are not displayed even when Twitter links are placed in the Substack
This continues to happen.
The Substack CEO has protested this, but Elon Musk has no intention of responding. Substack has stated that this situation is not temporary and will be permanent.
↓Substack has written an article on their official blog about their opinion on the Twitter issue.
I personally do not intend to migrate from Substack to another platform right now, but I felt that I should look into other tools, so I decided to research "Paragraph," the web3 version of Substack.
What is Paragraph?
Paragraph is a web3 version of Substack. It is basically a newsletter service like Substack, but with the ability to NFT and sell posts like Mirror, and limited distribution with a token gate.
■Function
Submissions are converted to NFT and sold
Contents are stored in Arweave
Prices and quantities can be freely set
Seamless sales by freely embedding NFT in posts in partnership with Highlight
Distribute content with access restrictions via token gate
Restrictions on existing tokens (NFTs and FTs)
Restrictions on issuing new tokens (new tokens can be issued for free on Paragraph)
Distribution can also be limited to registered email addresses
Existing members can be tagged and distributed by segment
Referral feature
Membership feature
Subscribe function
Referrals can be added to Sharemint, Memberships can be added to Coinvise, and Subscribers can be added to Unlock Protocol to add these features to their newsletters.
Token Gate can be configured to restrict posting to entire posts or paragraphs, allowing for flexibility in configuration.
↓When the whole area is restricted
↓When only paragraphs are restricted
■Outlook
The company raised $1.7 million in a pre-seed round of funding in October 2022 and is very promising.
The following additional features are being considered for the future
A voting system within the community (e.g., to determine the direction of content and use of funds)
Granting incentives to highly engaged fans
Building a DAO-like media (teaming up with multiple writers and sharing revenue)
This would be a very user-friendly platform for NFT projects, DAOs, and web3-based projects.
I'm trying to use it myself.
The main difference compared to Substack is whether or not the web3 element is involved. Token gate, NFT issuance, and so on.
I had to touch it to understand it, so I touched it a lot and got a general idea of its functions.
Things like the comfort of writing newsletters and the ease of use of the dashboard are not that different. I am used to Substack, so there was some discomfort, but I didn't find Paragraph difficult to use.
The best thing about Paragragh is that it is a great tool for managing NFT projects and DAOs.
For example,
Creating a Discord channel only for people who have collected a post or collected NFTs in a post.
Limited distribution & posting only to existing NFT holders
Granting an exclusive Discord role to those who have acquired more addresses through the referral feature utilizing Sharemint
Granting writing privileges to admins to manage articles as a team & automatically distribute revenue.
etc...
There are many possibilities.
Personally, I am currently considering the development of a community called "web3 Research Labs" as an extension of web3Research magazine, so I am thinking of using Paragraph there.
I am currently writing and monetizing a paid magazine on Substack, so that would make it difficult for me to migrate to another platform in a hurry. If it's just a free magazine, I can migrate right away, though.
And although Paragraph also allows you to set up subscriptions, it is only for payments with crypto assets, so I feel that the market is still larger for credit card payments with Substack.
I would like to find the best solution while using it in various ways!
That's all, we would appreciate it if you could help us by liking, commenting, and sharing on social networking sites. Thank you very much for taking a look!
Disclaimer: This is written after careful examination of researched information, but since it is privately operated & the source is often in English, there may be some mistranslated or incorrect information. Please understand that some information may be mistranslated or incorrect. Also, we may introduce Dapps, NFTs, and tokens in the articles, but we do not have any solicitation purpose. Please purchase and use all at your own risk.
Writer
mitsui@web3researcher
Daily information about web3 (projects, news, explanations of vocabulary, interviews with project owners, and articles about learning and thinking from research).
I run a web3 based Substack with over 1,000 subscribers in Japan. If you have a project that you would like to expand for Japan, please contact me on Twitter.
※This is a translation of a Japanese article, so I apologize for any unnatural English.