[DAO:fk6ossq] DCL Highlights - Expansion & Long-Term Commitment

Governance
1

by 0xbd03add5da0e173c67c9c1073ffba017147c42d4 (Vapo)

Should the following Tier 4: up to $60,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Content Creator category be approved?

Abstract

We have a Twitter page where we post daily videos about upcoming events in Decentraland. The main purpose of this page is to make easier for the everyday user to know more about the current events of the day, with informative short videos about the events details and artist’s background (if any performing). Think of it as the live events list, but with subtitled videos explaining them.

Grant size

58,320 USD

Beneficiary address

0xBD03aDd5da0e173C67C9C1073FFBA017147c42d4

Email address

dclhighlights@gmail.com

Description

One thing we noticed is that somedays it can get hard to keep track of events! Our goal is to make the event page more digestable for the average user, by visually explaining the activities of the day. We have been providing daily videos since april.

We have listened to the community feedback and we made a few quality updates on our editing. No more AI voices, changed to a high quality audio, implemented video covers, switched to a new intro and much more!

Twitter page: https://twitter.com/DclHighlights

Specification

Funding from the DAO will allow DCL Highlights to continue providing daily event videos to our Decentraland communities for the next year. We also plan to create at least 10x monthly videos aimed to bring more visibility to newly approved DAO-granted projects (this was a suggestion from the DAO Grant Support Squad on a video call we had).

Producing daily videos requires time and dedication, and creating them is crucial for the promotion of new events, musicians, artists, and DJs. The long-term application suggestion was also from a known community member in our last proposal.

Fund Allocation for 1 year:
Assistant Voice Actress for Translated Videos: $6000 Marketing: $12,000
Salary: $40,320 (approx. $20/hour, 6h/day everyday, at 42 hours/week)

The average video editor salary in US is $48,750 per year or $25 per hour. (Source: salary.com)

Personnel

My name is Vapo and I create videos by myself. I’ve been working fulltime in metaverse-related content since december 2021, contributing with videos and advertisement in different projects. (https://twitter.com/0xVapo)

Our goal is to become a steady source of video news about Decentraland events. We want a long-term commitment with the community to continue creating relevant content everyday to bring new users and keep current players updated as much as possible!

Roadmap and milestones

Create DAILY event videos for the Decentraland community for the next year.

Translate daily videos to brazilian portuguese with a female voice.

Create at least 10x monthly videos aimed to bring more visibility to newly approved DAO-granted projects (as suggested).

Improve current logo (as suggested) and much more.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

1 Like
2

How are the Tweet Analytics looking from the page. Only 500 followers and a few likes pr post. Doesnt seem like they get much exposure. Ive personally never seen any of these show up on my timeline and im on twitter daily. Need to max out the tagging so people actually see the content your creating.

So what i see atm is wanting what people make in a year, to possibly have only a handfull of people to actually see this content.

1 Like
3

The current followers are organic, not a single giveaway involved.

We always tag everybody involved in the event. I personally dislike the ‘spam tagging’ (tagging random followers unrelated to the post), but I agree I could add some hashtags as well so the algorithm can give a small boost.

Thanks for your feedback!

PS: Regarding “wanting what people make in a year”, the DAO Grant Squad can easily revoke the contract if we fail to deliver.

1 Like
4

67k rael from brazil is equal to 13,108.21 USD that is the salary conversion from the average salary of a video editor in Brazil. That is also giving extra on top of the middle end. Film / Video Editor Salary in Brazil | PayScale

I may seem like a dick for saying this but people not in the US sure can throw up US statistic, but im throw in geographic discrepancies. Im not trying to shoot anyone down but Id be interested to hear if you live in the US or Brazil? You using the US charts for more money or are you trying to be legit about numbers?

1 Like
5

I’m brazilian and I’m moving to Canada within the next few months. I don’t think we are supposed to disclose the place of living or current location anywhere in the grant proposal submission, but this isn’t a problem - I always said where I’m from. I used US rates because it seemed like the rule of thumb on previous proposals I’ve seen.

1 Like
6

Hmm ive seen people disclose before and I find it relevant. 60k here where im at in the US is worth a heck of a lot more in some other places in the world. Labor costs very depending state county country you name it.It doesnt really bug me using US base scale but id be upfront about my actual costs on a dao proposal according to where I live. From my understanding you have recieved 6k in funds in 2 different proposal before as well. One here DCL Highlights - Extension and one here Daily Decentraland videos to highlight upcoming events. Its interesting to see you keep come back and this time for more. Do you really feel a twitter page is worth 60k grant ontop of the previous 6k? Id be interested to see if the community has even noticed. Is your plan to bring in specifically more non english speaking people because thats something personally I could get behind. However I dont think just doing twitter warrants your grant. Looking at other people who dont just do twitter but stream and put in hours of time. Will you make a larger commitment to onboard?

2 Likes
7

Yes, I’m willing to make a larger commitment to onboard. As I said before we appreciate every feedback, and streaming Decentraland is something definitely on my plans. I’ve streamed for a few months before (reached 1k+ followers) and I would make it again!

1 Like
8

Agree with @DrGreenthumb Just need to see more please. I can change my mind though with a little more explanation.

2 Likes
9

I do not believe the quality of the edit are worth the average video editor salary, we are talking about a couple 30 seconds video a day, which include less than 15 seconds of in-game footage and reading of the event description.
It’s cool, but it’s not bringing 50k+ USD value to Decentraland.

2 Likes
10

You might think this, but my work isn’t solely editing. I have to research on a daily basis for multiple events, record footage, record lines, edit, format post etc.

As I said above I’m also planning on starting streaming DCL. I also requested below the average amount.

1 Like
11

Hi Vapo,
First let me tell you how much I love your videos on Twitter! They are short, to the point, and let people know what’s going on. I think you’re on the right track here, and you’re highlighting really cool events that will help people stay connected to our community!

That being said, I honestly feel that this grant is too high a cost to support at this time. I would prefer to see people use a salary that reflects the country they currently reside in… otherwise this seems like an unfair practice to those around them. At the rate you are asking this grant would pay you more than a teacher or engineer in Brazil (according to GlassDoor). Please correct me if I’m wrong here. If you are planning a move to another country, I think it would be a good idea to submit this grant after your move has taken place (just my two cents)

May I clarify a few points that will help me understand this grant better? You’ve applied for, and received in the past $6K worth of funds? You have a Twitter page with 500 followers? Have these funds been used to build and grow your Twitter page? Can you please let us know what these funds have been spent on?

Additionally $12,000 seems like a high number to use for “marketing”. Can you break that down a bit further? How will you use that? Is that marketing on Twitter? In the real world? I’ve paid for advertising on social media platforms before and that number is extremely high.

I see that you haven’t mentioned your YouTube page at all here, but I see a YT channel called “Decentraland Brazil” that has your brand logo, and a few videos uploaded 2 months ago. Are you intending to grow your YouTube presence at all with these funds?

Again, I appreciate what you have done for the community, I really love your Twitter videos! I just wish you had requested a smaller sum of money, or waited until you had more content produced to show you have a viable proof of concept. I’m happy to discuss any feedback you may have. Kindly, Canessa

3 Likes
12

The original plan was to use all on marketing, but we decided to focus on delivering the best video and audio quality possible with a few hardware upgrades, since the main past complaints were related to this. It made more sense to fix the current problems before promoting the product. I’m sure you can see the difference between the first few published videos and the current ones.

You could expend up to 140k in a single month with twitter ads alone, so I personally don’t think 12k is a lot of money. It’s going to be equally divided every month for an entire year.

The YouTube channel was an experiment and honestly didn’t delivered quite as expected, so we are moving to tiktok because it has a way higher chance of viralizing short videos compared to yt shorts.

I appreciate your input and feedback!

13

Hi Vapo, thanks for your quick response. I feel like I asked a lot of questions that are still unanswered. I’m only going to address 2 here…

“I personally don’t think 12k is a lot of money”
Uhhgg… this makes my heart hurt a little to be honest. I’ve worked to build different brands on different platforms with limited budgets, and I COULD MOVE MOUNTAINS with $12k. It’s a LOT of money for someone working to create their own brand on social media.

“The YouTube channel was an experiment and honestly didn’t delivered quite as expected”
You uploaded 5 videos two months ago. Building and monetizing a YouTube brand takes time and consistency. Can you tell us what your expectations were after 2 months? I guess hearing you say this makes me worry that if you were awarded a grant this size you might change course if you aren’t seeing the results you anticipated quickly. Building a social media presence takes years of failure and hard work. I was waiting to vote, but I think after this I’m going to vote no on this proposal. I’d still love it if you could answer some of my questions in my original post. Again, nothing personal, I love your Twitter shorts, but I just can’t vote yes at this time.

14

It’s great to hear you could move mountains with such amount. That’s the point. To make a difference with it. Btw I’m not seeking to ‘build my own brand’, but instead to provide a service for the community for an entire year, and to deliver this product for the most people possible.

Youtube doesn’t prioritize short videos, so the expectations weren’t high. It didn’t worked and we moved on to a better plan.

Thanks for the criticism!

15

Hi Vapo! I like what you’re doing with your DCL Highlights Twitter account but I think this is too soon for you to be asking for a grant of this size.
I suggest that you keep at it and keep doing those daily videos and build more of a presence first.
Take everyone’s feedback here on board and try again with the grant maybe in a few months when you have built some more. Probably start smaller with a lower grant amount.
I’d also suggest in future posting a draft of your proposal with the community in the Community Building Decentraland Discord (prop-incubator channel) and we can give you some feedback on problems to fix up before you submit a proposal.
Keep at it! Looking forward to seeing your Twitter page etc. grow

2 Likes
16

agree with the majority of comments here, i don’t think this kind of investment is justified yet

1 Like
17

Hey there. Voted no because while I do see the value for added exposure on events in DCL, I do not think this budget is justified. I agree with the majority of the comments above. It seems like there were a lot of decisions that were made and were not communicated. Any YouTube channel of any size can not be determined as a success or a failure after 2 months. Especially with only 5 Videos. That’s not even 1 video a week. YouTube DOES favor short form. They have had a completely separate algorithm ever since they release YouTube Shorts. Just like they do with their YouTube Music.

I hope that despite this feedback you continue to persevere and prove us all wrong! :pray:

1 Like
18

The somewhat unexpected feedback made me doubt for a brief moment, but I’ll persevere and keep bringing daily content to the community regardless . Thanks @Billyteacoin, @dax & @NikkiFuego.

1 Like
19

Hey @Vaporizador !

I know this is your 3rd grant request in the DAO, so first off, kudos for keeping this project going, and for actively taking the community’s feedback into account. It’s clear that you’ve been building this from the first grant, and tangibly reacting to feedback as you went along.

In short, I feel @dax best summarised my opinion on this grant:

However, your work and dedication to growing this idea doesn’t go unnoticed, and I think we’d all hate to see you be discouraged from doing this work.

My recommendation would be to scale your grant proposal down, for a third time, but this time heavily focusing on KPIs and performance metrics from your page. I wouldn’t ask the DAO to pay you a salary at this time, but rather I feel you should focus on allocating a few more funds to invest in costs you might face in scaling up the content production and content quality of the page (such as getting a voice actor to do voice-overs on Fiverr). Keep in mind that this area of funding for the DAO is also quite competitive, adding more weight to justifying a budget in this specific area.

Off the top of my head, I’d structure the grant to have a 2-3 months runway, at a much smaller scale, and build it in a way in which we can measurably assess the quantitative growth and results of your page over that period. Should you then choose to reapproach the DAO with a larger-scale grant after that time period, we’ll have more quantitative data to use in our favour when it comes to taking a decision on the said investment, especially if you implemented the tangible feedback shared with you.

Despite all this, however, I really agree with @NikkiFuego when they said:

Keep going. :fire:

2 Likes
20

DCL Highlights - Expansion & Long-Term Commitment

This proposal is now in status: REJECTED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 27% 525,751 VP (74 votes)
  • No 73% 1,394,431 VP (44 votes)
1 Like