WagMedia 2024 Data Report Volume 3: Recap of 1st Half and April 25 - May 24
WagMedia’s funding of content production concluded its third 4-week cycle, and with it, the first half of the funding period! We now have 12 weeks remaining. Thanks to all the viewers, creators, and affiliates for participating in WagMedia!
For an overview of WagMedia and its role in the Polkadot Ecosystem (including a brief overview on the economics of platforms and game theory associated with it), see my earlier report, Section I of (Data Report 1).
Recap of First 12 Weeks
During the first half of the funding period (February 25th – May 24th), WagMedia (“WM”) has produced:
82 original content (in English);
11 weekly newsletters;
543 news finds;
33 non-anglo content (original content in languages other than English);
6 translations;
proprietary website (https://thewagmedia.com/), which posts all content and the payouts associated with each content; and
updated payout bot.
These productions were made possible by contributions from 45 people, including content creators, affiliates (e.g., developers, social media managers), directors, and of course, the voters of OpenGov who provided funding from the Polkadot Treasury.
WagMedia received funding of 26,058 DOT from OpenGov on January 12,2024. Through May 24, 2024, WagMedia has paid out 2,783 in DOT and 67,082 in USDT, and as of May 24, 2024, WagMedia’s treasury held approximately 11,000 DOT and 25,000 USDC (and small amounts of other tokens, as described in more detail below).
In terms of content distribution, WagMedia published content on its website as well as on Grill and Substack, and from January through May 2024, @thatMediaWag made over 650 posts, generating over 350,000 views and over 18,000 engagements on X.
WagMedia has also partnered with various projects in the Polkadot ecosystem, including Polimec and Laos, to generate content on those projects.
The sections below, as well as the prior two data reports (Data Report 1 and Data Report 2), provide detailed data and descriptions on the production, payouts, and costs as well as the state of the WagMedia treasury and X stats, for each of the three 4-week cycles.
Summary of April 25 - May 24
For this 4-week period, WagMedia generated the production of 40 original content, 4 newsletters, 107 news finds, and 6 non-anglo original content. The total payout for these content was 954 DOT.
WagMedia posts a subset of the produced content, as well as other news, articles, and data on the Polkadot ecosystem, on X (@thatMediaWag). In May 2024, @thatMediaWag made 402 posts and generated over 240,000 views and over 12,000 engagements on X.
WagMedia also posts on its website, as well as on Grill and Substack:
https://thewagmedia.com/
https://grillapp.net/12332?ref=9866
https://substack.com/@wagmediaweekly
More details on WagMedia’s production and payouts, along with links to top content, are described below.
Creator Production and Payouts
The data on content production and payouts are based on a native spreadsheet for WagMedia’s treasury, reported publicly on
https://report.wagmedia.xyz/.
Content payouts are sent out “retroactively,” after the work is submitted / published. The USD values of content payouts made in DOT are approximated based on the DOT:USD exchange rate (the closing price) as of the date of transaction (i.e., when the payout is sent). These USD values are approximate in that the closing price for the day is assumed to be the exchange rate for all transactions that took place within that day. Therefore, while these USD values account for the volatility of crypto markets across different days, they do not account for the volatility within the same day.
The data and calculations reported in this article are not fully audited, and certain numbers are approximate and subject to different interpretations and potential errors. Please let me know (@vampsyfear) if you see any errors.
Original Content
For the 4-week period from April 25 through May 24, 2024, 15 creators produced a total of 40 original content (in English) for WagMedia. The total payouts for these content was 643 DOT (USD value of $4,542), of which 32 bounty content accounted for 453 DOT (USD value of $3,154), 7 general content accounted for 119 DOT (USD value of $870, and 1 commissioned content accounted for 71 DOT (USD value of $519). The average payout per content was 16 DOT (USD value of $114).
For bounty content, creators submit content on a topic set by the director of the unit (Goku), with a pre-set prize pool and deadlines to incentivize the timely production of content covering a topic of interest in the Polkadot ecosystem. Creators who submit the best content are awarded a payout according to the prize pool.
For general content (retroactive), creators submit content covering a topic of their choice for evaluation to WagMedia after some period of time (e.g., after publicizing their work, generating engagement and viewership). Creators are awarded a payout for content that sufficiently meets WagMedia’s directive, adds value, and/or generates significant engagement and viewership.
During this 4-week period, the payouts for bounty and general content ranged from a low of 0.5 DOT (USD value of $3) to a high of 42 DOT (USD value of $307). The highest paid content was an article on JAM generating over 100,000 impressions, written by @EmilKietzman:
https://x.com/EmilKietzman/status/1781085529611661512
The 2nd highest paid content, written by @EmilKietzman, presented 10 attributes associated with Polkadot and received a payout of 34 DOT (USD value of $248):
https://x.com/EmilKietzman/status/1774672454331388121
The 3rd highest paid content, written by gbaci (@gbaciX), covered JAM and received a payout of 31 DOT (USD value of $227):
https://x.com/gbaciX/status/1788643040942289381
As of June 30, 2024, these three articles collectively generated approximately 150,000 impressions on X.
For this 4-week period, Oyster (@OnlyDeFiGuy) was commissioned by WagMedia to write about DeFi in the Polkadot ecosystem. For commissioned content, a WagMedia Director invites a creator with a specialized knowledge to apply their expertise to write about topics that could be useful for the Polkadot community. For commissioned content, the Director(s) provide guidance and revision requests, and upon successful completion of the requested revisions, the content is published by WagMedia (e.g., in X, Substack, and webpage). Payouts for commissioned content are agreed to in advance and paid after successful completion of the work.
Oyster’s commissioned content covered core time sales on Polkadot, and was awarded a payout of 71 DOT (USD value of $519):
https://grillapp.net/12332/core-time-sales-on-polkadot-a-new-era-of-resource-145106
News
For this 4-week period, the Finder’s Program collected 24 events watch and 83 news content, including those covering DeFi, governance, memes, and NFTs in the Polkadot ecosystem. The News unit also produced 4 newsletters. The average cost to produce each newsletter was approximately 69 DOT (USD value of $483) and the average payout for each find was 0.15 DOT (USD value of $1). In total, the News unit paid approximately 293 DOT (USD value of $2,047) during this period.
The newsletter is edited by Dodow and covers all types of news and events related to Polkadot via the news program, and a selection of stories, including Top Story of the Week. Various creators contribute to writing the newsletter. Each week, Dodow selects a few notable contributors from the news program to write parts of the newsletter. The four newsletters published during this period were produced by five people: Dodow, Sanchez, yay.oi, aemonk, and TuringM4chine. Each section is attributed to the corresponding author.
The newsletters can be accessed through WagMedia’s website:
“Gray Matter!” (April 23, 2024): https://wagcom.vercel.app/post/gray-matter-1714572410782
“Treasure this & DOT!” (April 30, 2024): https://wagcom.vercel.app/post/treasure-this-dot-1715799405308
“Reporting about DOT!” (May 7, 2024): https://wagcom.vercel.app/post/reporting-about-dot-1715117127497
“A dot 2 Back!” (May 15, 2024): https://wagcom.vercel.app/post/a-dot-2-back-1715796015841
Non-Anglo Content
For this 4-week period, the non-anglo unit produced 3 original content, for a total payout of 17.9 DOT (USD value of $133), of which 16.5 DOT ($122) was paid to creators and 1.4 DOT ($10) was paid to reviewers.
The links to the 3 original non-anglo content are below:
https://x.com/th3hodlfather/status/1788646172871254074
https://x.com/th3hodlfather/status/1783575054976217290
Director Payouts and Operation Costs
The Directors conduct a variety of work themselves, including operating WagMedia, directing the various units within WagMedia, business development, and drafting articles and reports (like this one) as well as editing, evaluating, and paying for content and services. The Directors also communicate with each other on a near-daily basis to discuss any issues that come up and any significant decisions to be made, and to set the future direction of WagMedia.
In addition, as described above, WagMedia’s Directors vet and procure services from multiple people and vendors to perform various tasks, such as the development of websites and payout tools, and running social media, and managing the treasury as well as paying for certain types of costs.
Development work done through WagMedia is open source for all to use and available on GitHub: https://github.com/Wag-Media.
The table below reports the payouts to Directors, Affiliates, Developers and for other costs from April 25 through May 24, 2024. Total payouts were $22,972 in USDT and 20 DOT for this 4-week period, as reported below.
Treasury
WagMedia received funding of 26,058 DOT from OpenGov on January 12,2024. Based on an exchange rate (closing price) of $7.57 USD per DOT on January 12, 2024, the approximate USD value of the funding as of that date was $197,259. Through May 24, 2024, WagMedia has paid out 2,783 in DOT and 67,082 in USDT.
WagMedia’s assets are held in multiple wallets. A portion of the initial funding from OpenGov was converted to stablecoins, including USDT and USDC. The remaining funds are kept in DOT, HDX, and BNC. WagMedia stakes a portion of its DOT, which generates additional DOT for the treasury. WagMedia also received an airdrop of DED.
blink_n (@blink_nDoesDeFi) manages the WagMedia treasury and records its holdings on a near-daily basis. As of May 24, 2024, the WagMedia treasury held the following coins.
X / Twitter Stats
WagMedia’s X / Twitter account is managed by @Tur1ngM4ch1n3.
From January through May 2024, WagMedia made 661 posts and generated over 350,000 impressions and over 18,000 engagements.
For the month of May 2024, @thatMediaWag made 402 posts and generated over 240,000 impressions and over 12,000 engagements. These post included:
[1] “The Gavliator” video by @Tur1ngM4ch1n3 for @thatMediaWag, generating over 25,000 impressions:
https://x.com/thatMediaWag/status/1793644584322371841
[2] Post on @NovaWalletApp's Telenova wallet by @thatMediaWag, generating over 10,000 impressions:
https://x.com/thatMediaWag/status/1789241875649417286
[3] WagMedia’s May newsletters, collectively generating over 7,500 impressions.
Note that while the X / Twitter stats reported above are easy to access and provide some guidance on the value of a post, not all impressions and engagements have equal value. Therefore, the true value of each post generally cannot simply be ranked based on the number of impressions or engagements. Ultimately, what determines the true value is the post’s incremental contribution in generating an action from the viewer and the benefits associated with that action. The value of views and engagements depends on the audience captured by the creator and content. When analyzing and interpreting data, it is also important to keep in mind what you can see in the data versus what you cannot see. See the Appendix in Data Report 2 for a more detailed description.
