WagMedia - Collective Content Creation for 52 Weeks

About us:

WagMedia is a content creation and media hub that has been nurturing and incentivizing storytellers within the Polkadot ecosystem since 2021. We connect the dots, taking ecosystem ideas, products, and solutions from “So What?” to “Why Should People Care?” through supporting and nurturing content creators and ecosystem agents.

Adaptation and Evolution:

WagMedia continuously adapts to the needs of the ecosystem and paradigm shifts of the general crypto landscape, refining its approach in each treasury request. Starting as a simple tipping mechanism for content and translations on Discord, WagMedia now focuses solely on quality and impact over quantity, nurturing content creators to become ecosystem agents and long time contributors to the ecosystem.

What We Delivered in 5 months:

Weekly Newsletter: A comprehensive newsletter with 26 published editions, featuring stories thats showcase WM content generation and rise awareness about the polkadot ecosystem. A selection of featured stories that raise awareness include: The Moonbeam way, Time for Hydration, DOTcentralized funding (Polimec), Ready for Awesome Ajuna, Wud is going on (WUD), and the LAOS Report.
Content Bounties: On average, we opened 2 content bounties each week, totaling 41, +180 content written. Notable content from our bounties, featured in stories from our newsletter, includes The Bounty-Hive, Backing Content, Define DOT Content, Wag Content, and Gud Content
Retroactive Rewards: We retroactively rewarded the most impactful Polkadot content monthly, with a total of +30 payouts. Averaging $104.655 per post. Check out the featured story from our newsletter about retroactive content here.
Website and X Account: We aggregate all content on our website and leverage our X account for media publishing, memes, and entertaining material. See: Gavliator by Turingmachine, Polkadot: where you define the rules. Our X account also publishes threads and x articles derived from the news and featured stories in our newsletter.
Monthly Reports: We published +10 deatiled reports on OpenGov, treasury, DeFi, and the broader ecosystem.

Impact:

Many of the WAG creator’s content have had significant reach, with notable pieces receiving between 20,000 and 120,000 views. These have been leveraged by Polkadot and its founders, parachain teams and their official accounts.

A megathread about the future of Polkadot–JAM by EmilKietzman: 115K views, 850 Likes
Polkadot updates, changes, direction by Pablo 56K views, 693 Likes
Decoded takes by Gbaci: 40K views, 376 Likes

Check out +30 written posts, among many, that stand as the main highlights from the past 5 months.

Our Hidden Contribution:

Many current ecosystem agents and initiative leaders began their journey with WagMedia, including:

Csaint: Once a Kusamarian and WAG member, now a member of the Polkadot Editorial Board (EB).
Jay and Pnin: Former WAG members, now Jay leading the Kusamarian and Pnin works for it.
Cris.pap: Formerly with WAG, now founder of OGTracker.
Jeeper: Former WAG contributor, now part of the DF-funded OpenGov.watch team.
John Rhodel: Formerly with WAG, now working on a Brazilian BD initiative funded through OpenGov.
Jimmy Tudeski: A Polkadot OG and validator who contributed to WAG for a while before taking a DV role.
Gbaci: Author of Polkadot Beginners, continues contributions through WAG.
Goku: Started as a content creator, now a team member of WAG and the Polkadot EB.
Pablo: Long-time WAG contributor and also contributor to Kusamarian.

And many more who have been either became ambassadors or team members of various ecosystem projects.

Our monthly audit reports for every expenditure:

WagMedia website provides detailed content evaluation and reward audits. On-chain reward distributions can be found here (Treasury: DOT - OpenGov 365, and USDT - OpenGov 365).

Our Goal:

We aim to continue serving as a content creator hub, nurturing ecosystem agents, and incentivizing them to organically tell the stories of Polkadot. Our value loop:

Looking Forward:

We aspire to evolve into a media hub that curates content from Polkadot creators, inspiring agnostic audiences everywhere. Our content will remain:

Entertaining
Witty
Approachable
Factual
Data-based
Authenticated

We are committed to enlarging the options for creators and teams to access content and retroactive tips, as well as enabling teams to open their own bounties. We have built a simple and minimal website to narrow down the steps to access WagMedia and plan to make it even more user-friendly in the next phase.

One-Year Budget Request:

Brief budget info here

For:

Continuation of all existing WagMedia services.
Upgrading the website to make it more accessible, becoming a one-click tip request hub for creators.
Sustaining growth on X, maintaining an educational and entertaining tone.

Was everything Pink?

Nope. Challenges: WagMedia is primarily about creators, and it’s deeply satisfying when a creator is nurtured well enough to step up and make their own impact beyond WAG within the ecosystem. This is the ideal scenario when there is a constant emergence of new creators. After all, our value grows when there is starfish-like growth. However, we’ve noticed a stagnation in the number of new creators approaching Polkadot over the past year. Not just Polkadot, but also due to the prolonged market conditions and general sentiment changes in the crypto landscape. Still we adapt and keep on focusing on rewarding the best content rather than recycled or low-impact content, with tips ranging from $450 to $0.50.

Despite these challenges, during this period we have incentivized and kept prominent figures to write about Polkadot. We believe that if you see engaging, impactful content within the ecosystem, it’s likely written by a WagMedia creator.

You can read the full proposal here.

Questions and feedback are welcome, and we look forward to hearing those.

WagMedia Discord

WagMedia Twitter