The proposal plans to create an independent media outlet. The have clearly stated the concept and the approach. They have already created the media outlet and want to create new articles with the funding. This proposal focuses on the creation of content and does slightly match the criteria. It´s a product and brings a usecase to the community. It increases the quality of the current product and supports the community and customers by making content. I remove one star because it´s at the edge of matching the challenge.

The idea presented is to create a news platform that, in short, aims to publish news and content related to the Cardano blockchain and Project Catalyst. At the core of the project is the adapulse.io portal, which has existed for just a year and has already established a certain reputation in the ecosystem. Unfortunately, I lack the connection to the Challenge Dapps, as it is not a specific blockchain Use Case. Even though there is no exact matching challenge for this project in this funding round, I still feel obliged to give deductions in the score towards projects that fit perfectly into the challenge. The stated rationale on this topic is not sufficient for me. Another weakness of the proposal is that it does not describe exactly how independence will be ensured. Yes, being independent from sponsors is important, but what about independence of opinion? Precisely because we are building a decentralized system, I think it is important to promote not so much individual content creators, but rather tools and platforms that enable decentralized content creation and promote decentralized reward models (at least as part of this challenge). Despite the criticisms, I see Adapulse as a valuable project. However, due to the points mentioned above, I can only give it 2 stars for impact.

The proposed project to expand the independent media content around Cardano news & innovation, AdaPulse will immensely scale up the news and information distribution related to ADA, opening opportunities for article and news writer, creating a new media of input for the network, as it will also spread the knowledge and info about ADA, gathering new users that attached by it. The proposal has been written by covering quite every aspect they should’ve done, as they also mentioned the number of videos, articles, and visitors they’ve achieved in the previous self-funding period, improving their feasibility as I am certain the project could be continued and improved if they received funding. The proposal clearly defined the risk made by lack of incentives resulting staff turnover. By carefully managing the incentives system, the risk can be mitigated well, as mentioned in the proposal.

The problem within the challenge is that the need for objective coverage of topics within the Cardano ecosystem is paramount. Research that identifies the pros and cons of decision-making, products, and solutions in an accurate and timely manner. The solution proposed in the proposal is the extension of the independent media outlet Adapulse. Adapulse is a coalition of tech writers/engaged community members who create content around the innovation, projects and news within Cardano. Objective independent media coverage of updates, projects and news within the Cardano ecosystem is paramount. Given the growth, it will be necessary to start building pillars to discuss all topics outside the current institutions, e.g. Cardano Foundation and Input Output Global. Adapulse is an independent outlet made up of community members. The ideology is an informed and engaged community leading to sound decision making as they follow the path of decentralized governance. As the Voltaire era gains traction with the introduction of various governance concepts - dReps, voting on the chain and others. Adapulse aims to help anyone seeking resources to understand these concepts and participate in the ecosystem at their own pace. The proposer chooses this challenge category because the media and various challenges in fund9 were eliminated. They still believe that their proposal is well within the scope of this challenge. AdaPulse is a product of and for the community, which relies heavily on community input and communication to continue to grow and serve the Cardano ecosystem.

Your proposal is really up to the challenge given you, as you have built an objective, independent media outlet that covers updates, projects, and news within the Cardano ecosystem. In particular, you have many years of experience; your channel has also attracted a certain number of viewers. However, I found that the time you spend writing, editing, coordinating, and publishing content takes about 5 hours, which is more than half of the time it takes to produce the piece of content, not to mention the extra time. Graphic design space for content. Those of you who have a lot of experience in this, can I shorten this time by building a common topic for a quarter? Then you will save time for the above parts instead of researching quality content for viewers. In addition, it will be even better if you have plans to scale the project globally, such as converting many different languages.

This proposal seeks funding for the expansion of the grass roots independent media outlet, Adapulse. Adapulse is a coalition of tech writers/engaged community members creating content around the innovation, projects, & news within Cardano. https://www.adapulse.io It is questionable if the proposal fits well in the within the Dapps, Products & Integrations objectives or should wait for a better suited challenge in the next fund. The funding required is for: “funding for operations for the next 12 months” and “bringing on additional talent”. The proposal does not outline a plan for the future sustainability of the project. I neither agree nor disagree that the criteria have been met and suitably justified and that this proposal effectively addresses the challenge.

“The proposed solution intends to use funding to augment their retention policy and better incentivize content creators to engage in objective analyses of topics within the Cardano ecosystem. I strongly agree that such a solution is paramount to the community, and with scale, the solution will offer the community better and more reliable alternatives over current centralized outlets. As the number of Catalyst proposals continues to grow with each Funding round, and as we see our GitHub repositories grow with each passing week, the pieces are in place for this solution to scale and deliver a much needed resource to the community. A maturing ecosystem deserves a trusted and objective source of information to provide an alternative narrative where appropriate. It's a point of frustration for me, personally, to not have a space where unbiased opinions are not welcomed, let alone uncelebrated.

The problem statement of this proposal and the problem solution directly address the challenge question. Independent media coverage of the Cardano ecosystem is important for driving adoption and spreading awareness to new users. Many people in the Cardano community have noticed an anti-cardano bias in many crypto media outlets that have been spreading misinformation and biased opinions about Cardano. (For example: https://cointelegraph.com/news/can-cardano-s-july-hard-fork-prevent-ada-price-from-plunging-60) Therefore it is important that new users searching for information about the cardano ecosystem can find a wide verity of alternative and independent information sources. Much of crypto sentiment and investment dollars are driven by media narratives, and the impact of crypto media publishing cannot be understated. Jeff with Swag stakepool and his team of contributors have already had a significant impact on the Cardano space with AdaPulse, and they have created a valuable resource for the community. Funding for future development and expanding their reporting will help to drive adoption. This initial funding will allow the AdaPulse platform to scale and reach more people as the ecosystem grows. As governance becomes more critical to the success of Cardano, truthful and objective media and education for Catalyst/Voltaire voters becomes more important for decentralized governance to thrive and to help voters to make well educated decisions.

There are some metrics to measure their own process and a KPI that describes their growth from outside. Overall they seem important and reasonable. The problem was clearly stated in the beginning and the success goal solves the problem. The success is clearly defined by numbers and thus as the proposal itself very easy to audit.

The proposer is only primarily offering us one way to measure the progress of the process: The number of monthly users and views. This is basically logical for a media site. However, based on my experience in the online industry, I know that clicks are often not an indicator of relevance and quality. I lack a broader approach to measure the actual quality of the articles and videos created. I also lack a basis for reporting the unadulterated numbers in a traceable way. Overall, the proposal lacks substance in my view to justify the total price. Nevertheless, I wish the team every success.

They have provided a quantifiable amounts of metric to measure the progress and the success of the project, with over 400 pieces of content in 12 months. They also account the number of readers and the number of views on their content. Project will be tracked on weekly newsletter publishing that consist 4 pieces of content, proposal coverage, number of videos upload in a week on youtube, and expansion of audience number, which are quantifiable and traceable. Link to the website platform and the youtube channel has also clearly provided, making it easier to audit.

There is a very detailed roadmap with milestones in the proposal, as well as a time horizon for realization. The proposal is feasible and a solution that addresses the problem described. KPIs have been determined that will be followed up. These are very clearly defined. A weekly newsletter with at least 4 content/news articles will be published. Each Project Catalyst Financing Round Adapulse includes 30 different proposals. Two videos per week will be uploaded to Adapulse News on Youtube. The goal is to increase the audience by 100% over the course of 12 months (from 20k monthly unique readers to 40k). If this project is successfully implemented, then the metrics listed in their proposal will be surpassed as they grow their audience organically. They expect to generate more than 400 pieces of content around the Cardano ecosystem over the next 12 months. They expect to meet and possibly exceed these expectations if funded. Another indicator of success is growing the audience. On average, the Adapulse website has between 20k-25k unique readers monthly and about 150 views on each video uploaded to Adapulse on YouTube. Expanding the reach by doubling the viewership in the next 12 months would certainly be an indicator of success. The petitioner has clearly stated that the need for objective coverage of topics within the Cardano ecosystem is paramount. The solution proposed by the submitter is the extension of the independent media outlet Adapulse. The expansion of Adapulse clearly addresses these problems. A variant of this proposal was previously submitted in Fonds8 but did not meet the voting threshold to receive a subsidy. The current proposal will certainly do this.

The metrics you give are very detailed and accurate, as you plan to create more than 400 pieces of content centered around the Cardano ecosystem in the next 12 months, thereby increasing the number. Viewers. Please make your contests for viewers, thereby increasing their interest; it's just a tiny suggestion; you guys have done a great job now. Overall, I think you are controlling the project very well.

The proposal has very good metrics to track the progress of the project. Everything is clearly defined with weekly milestones. This proposal will be easy to audit. Success is well defined, clearly explained and measurable. This is one of the best auditability sections of proposals that I have seen. This proposal will be easy to audit. I strongly agree that this proposal provides me with sufficient information to assess the progress in attaining its stated goals.

The information provided is sufficient to fully audit the progress and success of the proposal. ISpecifically, the measures of success offer me adequate tools to evaluate the success of the project. Of note, the measures of success are tailored towards the end users of the content the team hopes to develop, and it reflects the team’s character and their purpose that is to deliver content primarily for the Cardano ecosystem to consume. The team has many public channels through which their media content will be delivered, so it will be both easy and educational to track progress, with the benefits of doing so making each consumer a more mature member of our community. With that said, the team did not include any measures related to retaining or onboarding content creators, and I do think it is an important way to measure their ability, not just to scale, but to sustain their model and solution.

The metrics for auditing this proposal are clearly defined in this proposal with a roadmap and clear timelines. Due to all of the stated deliverables being publicly accessible media, it will be easy for the catalyst community to see if they have been completed on time. The KPI's will consist of the following: -Weekly newsletter containing at least 4 pieces of content/news articles Each Project Catalyst Funding round Adapulse will cover 30 different proposals Upload two videos a week to Adapulse News on Youtube Expand audience by 100% over the course of 12 months. (from 20k monthly unique readers to 40k) The only metric that may require reporting to the Cardano catalyst community for auditing is the number of monthly readers, while the rest will be posted publicly. Therefore this proposal is rated 5/5 for auditability.