[DAO:a180365] The DCL Report Increasing Awareness and Empowering Community

Governance
1

by 0xd2d950cea649feef4d6111c18adbd9a37b3a9f63 (Report)

Should the following Tier 6: up to $240,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Content Creator category be approved?

Abstract

Since January 2021 The Decentraland Report has been a platform for community members to join as reporters and preserve the history of the metaverse. By increasing the reach and the educational, interactive content provided through this platform, we bring attention to the proof of concept of the creator economy created through the DCL Report, the potential of creation and benefiting the entire Decentraland ecosystem and Metaverse enthusiasts around the globe.

Our surveys show high user satisfaction, retention, and an active creative economy. We offer valuable opportunities which allow members to receive both crypto and fiat rewards. This model has received recognition around the world and in mainstream media.

Grant size

240,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0xe8C599568Fb76884C1100278A0430011067707Ec

Email address

kevinonearth999@gmail.com

Description

This grant aims to bring awareness to:

  1. Attract more users and creators to Decentraland and 2) Empower the DCL Report ecosystem to reach independent/ sustainable growth path towards their mission (without depending on DAO support for video editors, server and operational costs).

The Decentraland Report team has been preserving the history of the metaverse since January 2021, as well as partaking into the present and building the future of the Metaverse. The work and content creation efforts to date brought Decentraland the attention of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. As seen on Major News Networks such as CBS, NBC, Cointelegraph, and more, The DCL Report has grown by developing meaningful experiences around easily discovering and joining Decentraland. However, many creators/developers/designers have yet to discover ways to start exploring the Metaverse.

The DCL Report didn’t just impact and change the way we interacted and shared immersive experiences but also how we created value. To prepare for a growing community, our team completed development of an automated rewards system which delivers our $REPORT tokens and NFTs via a smart contract. This initiative was accomplished with the help of community sponsors and the Decentraland DAO to solve problems in user retention and scalability.

For example, the increasing size of the community would be limited by the amount of prizes a person could manually send. By successfully automating this, we now are able to keep our $REPORT token distribution fair, transparent, and gives our DAO the potential to remain a platform for the community members to tell their story as they build and participate in the metaverse.

Our decentralized news network, by creators for creators, is a reputable and cost effective method to generate content about Decentraland and how to be part of it. In addition, it gives community members an open platform they can participate in at various levels. Whether as a reporter, or viewers using their $REPORT tokens to reserve coverage.

Our goal is not to depend on DAO funding to sustain The Decentraland Report all along the journey. We have budgeted this grant funding accounting for our needs for our biggest awareness campaign yet to reach creators around the world (i.e. developers, designers, video editors, community managers, social media/marketing director), and the goals it will enable within the timeline needed to become sustainable financially and prove our model moving forward.

To address sustainability a SaaS business model has been established. Through a strategic partnership with Xpand.GG, The DCL Report retains 90% of revenue from donations and recurring subscriptions on our community page. Through Xpand, we can automatically divide revenues across our team.

Specification

Crafted videos explaining how to access the ecosystem. We will ensure a social media presence, AB testing for landing pages to perfect messaging. Through this we aim to bring over 100k members through The Decentraland Report.

With essential infrastructure to support our growth in place, we envision bringing like minded creators who will be positive contributing members of the Decentraland ecosystem.

We aim to reach individuals within the following demographic:
Ages 18 - 34 (Primary), 35-44 (secondary)
Individuals Curious/ Active in Web3 & Metaverse
University/Higher Education Student & Faculty
Backgrounds in Computer Science, Design, Music, and Art

We will focus on placing content within relevant contexts for specific goals; General content to attract new audience i.e. blender tutorial videos, and specific content about current community efforts and bringing awareness to what is currently being done i.e. DCL Report DAO voted highlighted projects each month, opening the space for more creators to partake in this revolutionary time to be for artists who want to belong to a community, feel recognized and contribute to this value creation. The content will be optimized for specific audience on social media channels. The associated campaign budget will be allocated according to performance results from data generated through metrics (impression, engagement, CTR).

While content is hosted on each Reporters individual channels, content is also now hosted across DCL Report social and content channels. The budget allocation below is a framework for spending which will allow us to optimize content, targeting and reach to ultimately achieve our goals of this campaign.

Reporter Equipment (Camera, Lighting, Microphone; $4,000/reporter) - $32,000
Targeted Advertising Placement - $30,000 (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Global Guerilla Marketing using Visual Impact Driven Audio/Visual Pieces, Other)
Project Manager - $24,000
Marketing Director - $24,000
Reporter Generated Micro-Content - $24,000 ($500/Month/Reporter)
Lead Video Editor - $24,000
Content Manager - $15,000
Chief Newsletter Editor - $15,000
Graphic Designer/3D modeler for Campaign Content - $15,000
IRL Event Presence and Attendance Budget (5 events attended) - $15,000
Giveaway/Prizes Funds - $12,000 ($2k/month)
Web Design - $10,000

Ad spend will happen in various phases. 25% of the initial advertising spend will be used to optimize messaging and audience targeting. The remaining 75% of advertising will be used to reach our growth goal and empower our community to always have a platform where they can be heard and tell their story as we build the metaverse.

By watching and subscribing to our channel on Xpand (Call to Action) they will earn all these rewards, learn how to navigate the metaverse effectively, and use the $REPORT tokens acquired to have their projects covered when they decide to release work themselves.

We will also execute a strategy around IRL event presence/ coverage and speaking engagements, which will bolster networking opportunities to connect with individuals inside the web3 space, but also individuals outside of Decentraland seeking to discover web3 possibilities in the “real-world”.

The events which we are targeting includes: DCentralMiami, ETH San Francisco, Consensus, International Conference on Internet of Things Based on Blockchain (ICIOTBB), Blockchain Africa Conference.

Personnel

Operations
Founder - KevinOnEarth999 (www.ImagineOnEarth.com)
Project Manager - PinkBambii (https://pinkandshades.com/)
Marketing Director - Nicole Nixon (https://www.nicolenixon.net/)
Graphic Designer/3D modeler - Sango of the East
CGI and Animations - Cinetica.Studios
Lead Video Editor - Szjanko, Nadim (Over a decade of News Channel & Editing Experience)
Content Manager - Stefan
Chief Newsletter Editor - Lina (Creator of The Wearables Daily Newsletter)

Reporters
Maryana - Mondays from 11PM UTC to Tuesday 12AM UTC

Fractillians - Tuesday from 12AM UTC to 1AM UTC

KevinOnEarth - Tuesdays from 11PM UTC to Wednesday 12AM UTC & Thursdays from 11PM UTC to Friday 12AM Twitch

MetaTrekkers - Wednesdays from 1AM UTC to 2AM UTC

FriskyBumbleBee - Wednesdays from 11PM UTC to Thursday Twitch

Moustafa - Thursdays from 4PM UTC to 5PM UTC

Fabinho - Fridays from 11PM UTC to Saturday 12AM UTC

Ina_DCL - Saturdays from 6PM UTC to 7PM UTC

Roadmap and milestones

To see our progress to date you can take a look at our Gitbook: The Decentraland Report - The Decentraland Report | A P2E News

To be sure we were ready to bring awareness to the potential of the creator economy we’ve proven, we conducted various surveys and analysis across our platform. While the web3 community sentiment has certainly shifted with the current market conditions, our audience has continued to stay engaged.

Using Qualtrics 2to measure Net Promoter Score of 66, which is held as an Excellent Net Promoter Score. Here are some of the responses as to WHY people scored this way and why we believe it is time that we spread the word about The Decentraland Report:

“It is the soul of Decentraland. It serves to start and be informed of everything that happens”

Timeline:
Month 1-2:
Complete Landing Page and Marketing Materials
Content planning
Launch of DCL Report Newsletter
Schedule Conference Attendance
Month 3-4:
Begin A/B Testing Marketing Campaign and Audience Targeting
Month 5:
Report results and metrics
Month 6:
Optimize Campaign
Upon Completion: Case Study

Key Progress Indicators which we will track and report during campaign:
Landing Page Traffic and A/B Testing Results, CTR, New community members

Funds managed by 3 multi-sig/owners consisting of KevinOnEarth999 (Founder of DCL Report) Alek (Founder of Xpand.GG) and one other individual. All individuals for Multi-sig will be approved by The DCL Report DAO

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

2 Likes
2

wow $240k…? that seems a little extreme for this

3

@beanie It may seam that way at first glance but to bring 100k new users into Decentraland we really believe it to be the appropriate investment. We have such a committed team, and project leaders in place to ensure this is done correctly, welcoming any questions or concerns!

Note that we have made adjustments to our budget and strategy from our previous submission, and since then we have also approved in our DCL Report DAO that 10% of our DCL Report community’s revenue will go to repaying the DCL DAO funding provided. This is not something we do to put pressure on other creators to do the same, but with our business model this is something we can do and believe it will ensure other creators will be able to use funds to help build the metaverse and serve the community!

4

While I appreciate the contributions that The DCL Report has made to the platform, I don’t believe the reporters do much more in regards to documenting the history of DCL than the general public. #decentraland - Just search this on twitter and you will find a history of all things related to DCL.

It seems counterproductive IMO to advertise a niche group of DCL in hopes that it will somehow attract new users to DCL. How will this help improve Decentraland? This is some we must ask ourselves any time we are voting on a proposal. I can’t determine a way it will help DCL vs just helping your project, and for that reason I am voting now.

1 Like
5

Decentraland’s biggest problem is the barrier for entry. Between the technical challenges, and finding reasons to be in the metaverse, The DCL Report has really solved that.

We also have created our own token economy which gives the anyone way to get ad space, coverage, and a voice on their own Decentralized News Network.

We are using these funds to promote Decentraland and using this platform we have built using Decentraland DAO funds to be a tool for bringing awareness to DCL creators and the overall ecosystem.

This effort carried out by long time DCL builders will improve Decentraland by allowing more people to be a part of it. I think the worst thing we could do is come to a point where we as Decentraland and we are not willing to support a committed group from within our community to reach towards these important goals. What good is a bridge, if no one knows about it? Very few people actually know about what is happening in the metaverse…much less Decentraland.

The DCL Report gives people a diverse perspective which is easy to access and become a part of. People use The DCL Report to find their bearings in the metaverse, we sharing that with as many people as possible right now is an urgent need to keep growing Decentraland.

6

As stated with your last proposal, I’m in favor of diversification. You already received a $120,000 grant in the spring of this year, and now you are asking for another $240,000. This would be $360,000 that would go towards building your brand and website (and yes, bring new users into Decentraland). While I believe in you and your team, this is a LOT of money to extract from the DAO. I’d rather see Decentraland itself spend this money to pay for ads bringing new users. Best of luck to you and your team Kevin!

3 Likes
7

I am voting YES. Yes @Canessa and @beanie are right this is a lot of money. However what is goal of Decentraland and the purpose of Decentraland $40 million DOA fund? If not to improve and grow the metaverse so it can keep making more revenue for the DOA? I ran into the same issue on my last proposal to bring in 250,000 new users to Decentraland by linking there NFTs. I got 75 yes votes but no whales would vote yes. Is the goal for the DOA to invest in big projects to bring in new users to expand the DOA or is the goal for the DOA to invest in only small projects that are just for fun until the funds run out?

1 Like
8

that’s great for your company but with other companies coming into decentraland like sandstorm taking $0 profit and $0 in salaries for their team from the DAO grant then using 100% of the grant funds to support builders entering decentraland, your proposal is difficult to justify. Looks like a quarter million to be paid on primarily salaries which is the opposite of that content creator-approved grant.

i want to see more companies like that taking $0 (or close to that if you can) in profits to drive adoption in decentraland. the community wants that as well from what ive seen.

still believe this is way to much in grant funding … would you be open to taking half that? might work better to start smaller

1 Like
9

I feel like the marketing and onboarding grants are really tough and don’t get a lot of support because its so hard to track results. Projects like wondermine and Last Slice’s Bazzar offered tangible and measurable products in their 240K proposals, and they still had a hard time passing.

“On boarding users” can mean a lot of things. People being exposed to the DCL brand for the first time? People joining the discord? People visiting Decentraland once? Or people long term joining the community of users, builders, and voters? Its all very nebulous, hard to define, and difficult to measure which is why I think so many are reluctant to fund marketing grants.

Kevin, I know for a fact that your org and community brings decentraland value via youtube videos and new users. I think if you approach this grant showing tangible data overtime, it might be more successful in the polls? Perhaps break it down into chunks with goals and results very clearly defined. Like to begin: “we are asking for 10k for a two month ad and onboarding program.” At the end of the 2 months you report to the dao with measurable data on number of new users and user retention? If its successful, you have something solid you can point to when asking for an additional 10k or 50k or 100k.

The Dao gets a lot of marketing and onboarding grants with next to no follow up or hard data on users. Without this info, voting for marketing grants often feels like throwing money into a bottomless pit.

Abstaining from voting until the comment section settles and questions answered.

2 Likes
10

I have been for a bit more than year in Decentraland, but to be honest, I don’t know much about you. Once I joined your stream for a few minutes and you looked like tired, very low energy Dan Humphrey, but I will make effort to watch your and reporters streams before proposal deadline

Also you are aiming to bring 100K new users into Decentraland, how is that going to be measured?

11

Isn’t the whole point of a Decentralized Metaverse to be that there isn’t a centralized organization managing operations? The actual goal of the DCL Foundation is to not even exist anymore, so its counter to the Foundations philosophy start to take on marketing responsibilities to drive growth like this. It’s more in alignment that the community would drive marketing efforts of their own.

Again, this is you deciding not to support DCL Report because we have created too much too fast. If we were not delivering on everything we said we would build then I’d understand, but why start slowing us down if we are ready for the next big effort as a team? I come from a growth mindset so I can’t say I’d agree with the idea of making consistent and on-time delivery of projects a reason to turn a creator away.

2 Likes
12

I think there are many approaches to improving Decentraland and right now isn’t the time for us to be gatekeeping progress. This team is made up of builders, content creators, and individuals who are going to use the funds allocated to spend the time needed to create.

I think we all have the same goal here, but disagreements on how to achieve it. I would be open for reducing the effort, I don’t think it’s as simple as “cutting it in half” because a lot of it comes down to having the right “person power” to execute the strategy we have in place.

We will take the time to hear everyone’s feedback, but I trust our team and everyone who has helped us build this strategy and am confident we can achieve our mission.

3 Likes
13

ile, we have been doing exactly this and you can see that all in our Gitbook: Funded by the DCL DAO - The Decentraland Report | A P2E News

We worked our way to building an amazing rewards system which now is completely developed.

Now we are asking for the funds to bring bring accelerant to this model to reach sustainability while also directly empowering the creative ecosystem through our very work.

The whole DCL Report team would not waste their time on this, I wish you could understand what we were doing here and why it’s so important.

@Shiny Thanks! I have to say, I am human so sometimes considering I work a full time job, and still commit to streaming, yes I can be tired sometimes xD

“Key Progress Indicators which we will track and report during campaign
Landing Page Traffic and A/B Testing Results, CTR, New DCL Report community members”

4 Likes
14

Thanks for the quick reply. I’ll take a look.

15

The DCL Report team is so grateful to all your feedback. As said “Diamonds are made under pressure” and that’s what this forum enables: a platform to hear feedback and adjust based on what the community feels is an impactful project.
I think we forget here that the money isn’t going to KoE, this is a funding request that will enable 8 reporters within an entity (established Tokens and an economy model that’s being used) to create more content online and IRL. The DCL Report is requesting funds to enable creators to keep creating and to attract more talent that isn’t aware of the opportunities in the space.
I am surprised to hear that the benefits of having new creators join the space isn’t a tangible impact as that’s the point of getting projects out, sharing with the outside world, increasing participation and using crowd wisdom to keep improving and aiming towards fulfilling a sustainable creator economy.
Let’s have constructive feedback so we keep empowering this amazing community and enable many others to join :rocket::rocket::rocket:

2 Likes
16

Obvious Yes for me. The DCL Report is the best option our community has to build awareness about Decentraland and take control of the storytelling about it.

The key section on this proposal is targeting “Ages 18 - 34 (Primary), 35-44 (secondary) Individuals Curious/ Active in Web3 & Metaverse University/Higher Education Student & Faculty Backgrounds in Computer Science, Design, Music, and Art”.

Young students learning how to create content for Decentraland should boost the quality and quantity of content, and help shift the focus from the “scarce land platform” to the “virtual world platform”.

240k is a lot of money, but is the amount required to hopefully move away from the “lame rave”, “empty expensive world” narrative.

2 Likes
17

Good evening, at the end of the day I respect everyone’s perspective and views to the proposal. Everyone is entitled to their own perspective and opinion. It’s your responsibility here in the DAO to raise your concerns, and it’s good to have dialogue amongst community leaders.

First, I would like to start off and say diversity is what truly makes everything unique and rich. Having people from around the world in a singular location is truly amazing. Our team comprises of individuals from different industries ranging from finance, defense, project management, consulting, 3D design, and select personnel speaks in Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic. Most of the reporters (including myself) onboarded early April and began steaming late in the month.

Having multiple reporters speaking different languages will potentially attract different communities around the globe and ultimately attracting quality users to Decentraland. This proposal is to improve our current capabilities within our team, which will provide higher quality deliverables and content highlighting an array of different events, unique moments in Decentraland, the launch of our newsletter, and engage in real life (IRL) conference / events. By attending the IRL events, we can potentially engage with entry, and mid-level professionals.

By having such a diverse and robust team, we can combat misinformation- such as we have seen with the most recent article from CoinDesk. Now misinformation is much different then disinformation, as although the information is false and misleads, one is created without the intention of causing harm, and one is deliberately causing harm by controlling a narrative. Regardless of whether its misinformation or disinformation, wouldn’t you rather have an organic team heavily involved within this space reporting about Decentraland and providing high quality content? Or would you rather seek information solely from twitter? Even Mark Cuban shared the CoinDesk article, creating more misinformation and potentially scaring off investors unintentionally.

In closing, I want to reiterate on how I truly respect everyone’s perspective and hold no animosity to anyone. I hope my remarks may have change your view or perspective on the proposal. I believe we are pioneers in this space, and we’re here for the long haul! Here’s a famous quote that always resonated with me:

“I can tell you, without diversity, creativity remains stagnant.” –Edward Enninful.

It’s an old quote, but one that I always circle back too.

1 Like
18

Sounds great, as DCL is decentralised it takes people making this move to enact the advertisements and marketing through the DAO. It takes members of the DAO to make the push and thats what kevin is doing. Its the first proposal of its kind and will be good to see it played out!

2 Likes
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Decentralnd Report isn’t just a broadcast agency but its our voice! They speak for us when we don’t have a voice! They let others know what is true or false! Recently false news of DCL was broadcasted, DCL Report is there to shed light and let the world know what true or false! If we don’t have a news agency for the people by the people, then what do we have? We are in a bear market and we need to keep the momentum of DCL and DCL report going, now is the time to push harder especially in the bear market! My vote is YES YES YES! Why stop building now? For now there is no better way, Lets continue to finish what we started and not give up halfway!

3 Likes
20

Maybe I am misunderstanding, How is this going to bring 100K new users? Also would you mind showing the metrics of the last proposal of all the new users you have brought in?

Can you share the survey results? How does one know these cannot be altered?

Each reporter needs $4000 equipment?

A video editor makes the same as the project manager?

Content Manager- What does this position do?

So you want the community to pay for this, and then force the same community to watch your reports so they can earn report tokens so they can redeem those tokens for their content can be covered? So can you remind me of your content manager’s role is again?

We cannot even seem to hold events right now without crashing. Also right now, every scene’s functionality is the exact same with different themes. You are mining a meteor, chopping a tree, etc. Doing very basic things. If we send 100k new users in, will that keep them here. I do recall earlier this year we had a ton of people at the Fashion week, where are they now? Obviously awareness campaigns like this one, are not the solution. Awareness comes last. We need to provide content that gives a better USER EXPERIENCE. Without upgrades to the Decentraland Platform itself, there is no point to create more awareness to a platform thats limited on its user experience. The User Experience needs to be the priority.