Interactive Cardano Ecosystem Map

Built on Cardano, BoC, is currently live, running in BETA, and is already far ahead of its competitors in terms of scope, usability, and the quality of its content.

Approximately 1100 hours of work have been put into BoC over the course of the past three months to get it to its current state and we want to expand our vision of this map of the Cardano ecosystem further. This includes:

- Increasing the quantity and quality of listed projects week on week, including in-depth research and the writing up of informative and unbiased descriptions for each project.

- Creating a dictionary of industry specific terminologies to be coded into the terms used throughout the site. This will be done using pop-up definitions, so that when a user hover over an industry specific term e.g. AMM, mainnet, smart contract, babel fees; the definition of that term pops up, meaning they don't have to leave the page or even lose their spot in the text.

- Provide industry descriptions, written in layman's terms, across the platform to introduce the user to, and familiarize them with, the subcategories of the Cardano ecosystem.

- Integrating "available in" language tags into all projects and searching capabilities to facilitate the ease of finding and using tools built on Cardano in the users native tongue.

- Expanding project page designs so they are tailored to spotlight the unique features of each specific industry e.g. An NFT collection is very different from a DEX and both are very different from a developer tool. All project pages are currently uniform. We will assess each of the 13+ industries to document its specific needs and develop page formats and input forms to suit these needs.

- Currently, BoC showcases Cardano in a project-orientated fashion through a search function. This method of discovery resonates strongly with the existing Cardano community but fails to capture the imagination and attention of beginner users who are dissuaded from further exploration by an excess of foreign concepts and new terminologies. We are going to develop a fun and explorative UI funnel, "a journey through the industries", aimed specifically at the Cardano and crypto newcomer. This UI will consist of education materials, specific to each industry category found on BoC, that break down and explain each unique industry to the newcomer. We will utilize various media formats and the project data we've accumulated to help us simply explain even the most complex of topics found in the Cardano-verse.

- Optimizing the search and tagging functions to better organize the language of Cardano that is used to catalogue the ecosystem.

- Performing a code audit to move BoC from BETA to public and to ready the platform for the almost exponential growth of both users and the Cardano ecosystem in the coming months and years.

*BUDGET*

Asking for $44,000

$44,000 funds another 1100 hours of work -@ $40p/hr- for both development and content creation over the next 3 months.

*DELIVERABLES TIMELINE*

1 Month - The successful implementation of short and informative industry descriptions into the UI. Integrate language tags into all projects and the search function. The addition of 40+ projects and their write ups to the site.

2 Months - Creation of the dictionary of terms along with implementation into all existing projects on the site. The addition of 40+ projects and their write ups to the site. Audit of existing code completed and BoC emerging from BETA.

3 Months - Creation and implementation of the UI funnel "a journey through the industries". The addition of 40+ projects and their write ups to the site.

*DEFINITIONS OF SUCCESS*

Through all of the below a steady increase in site visits, resulting in an increase in the adoption and awareness of Cardano, is a key and continuous metric of success.

3 Months

Becoming a developers go-to source for discovering the tools they will use to develop their ideas on top of the Cardano blockchain.

6 Months

Use of BoC as a referenceable resource by community hubs around the world. Discussions of translating the static educational content into various languages.

12 Months

Continue to maintain an up-to-date education system, library of projects, and level playing field for project discovery in the Cardano ecosystem. This means not having to succumb to financial pressure from advertisers or others attempting to manipulate our morals and steer the platform away from its pure purpose of education and discovery for their own individual gains.

*WHY DO WE NEED BUILT ON CARDANO?*

Many consumers (51% in some surveys) are currently investing in cryptocurrencies with get-rich-quick ideas and no knowledge of the cypherpunk and societal democratization ideals underlying their inception and proliferation. This gap between this reality and the dream state of indoctrinating more members of the public to become involved in the projects being built on blockchains exists for two reasons:

1. The media-fueled, speculative-asset perspective of cryptocurrencies projected toward members of the general public.

2. The time-consuming learning process required to become involved with any crypto project on more than a speculative investment level.

If one aspires to learn more and chooses to dive down the proverbial rabbit hole to explore the crypto-world below this superficial level they find a world full of highly fragmented, unorganized content and information. This content is often driven by ulterior motives -subscribers, stakes, and views- whilst content creators and investment returns regularly take center stage; with the information filling only a formal and auxiliary station.

Such content is not conducive to fostering further engagement with blockchain platforms, and it's fragmented nature doesn't give the newbie a cohesive path to a place where they can seek concrete knowledge of this foreign world and the concepts it puts forth; thus deterring them from exploring further, becoming an involved member of the space and, potentially, an advocate for the underlying ideals noted in the first paragraph.

Currently, when introducing others to the crypto-verse, those in-the-know will inform those who want-to-know by talking to them, by explaining "it" to them and telling them what it "is". They may show them a website or two -of either specific projects or a blockchain encompassing website like the Cardano Foundation- and then direct them to some select Youtube videos. But what do these closed-loop websites actually tell the reader? and, more importantly, where do they guide themselves thereafter?

The same goes for Youtube videos, except that the person behind the video may have an ulterior motive shaping their words; and, in a way, you can say projects' homepages do too. After this, then what? If our protagonist, armed with their iotas of new knowledge, is still willing to cast themself adrift into the oceans in front of them, where are they to steer their ship? There is no map to guide them. There is no tool to help them feel their way through the world of Cardano.

If only our in-the-know facilitator of this story could direct their, often tentatively eager, want-to-know amigo to an easily navigable map of the ecosystem? This map is our vision. This map doesn't only provide an overview of the whole, and often intimidatingly large, ecosystem that stretches out before the reader, it also contains smaller, sub-maps, to which an explorer can turn when they want to delve deeper into a certain element of the ecosystem; be that the canyon of DEXs or the sea of NFTs. Each of these maps comes with a legend, informing our new traveller of the meanings of all the strange acronyms and terminologies they find littering the maps of the ecosystem they're exploring.

As a community managed, ecosystem-growth-orientated platform Project Catalyst is yet to develop an information hub aimed at those looking to expose themselves to the possibilities of Cardano and educate themselves to a level where they can feel confident in participating; be that as a user of a dApp or blockchain based service, or by adding their voice to the community.

Fostering engagement, in any and all crypto-spheres, is most often done through encouraging the self-education of the under-informed by making them fumble blindly across uncharted territory; a world full of acronyms and technological terminology that can terminally bog the explorer down, stifling their desire to continue.

Unfortunately, this is a poor way of improving the conversion rate of "interested member of the public" into "informed user".

In order to help drive the awareness and adoption rates of Cardano around the world there is a need for a uniform hub of up-to-date, informative content that is displayed in a neutral way and written in un-intimidating layman's terms without a bias. A "central" hub of written information like this can provide the citizens of the world with access to a uniform and easily navigable resource.

We have already started building it: builtoncardano.com