Blogarithms: Rocketboom
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My Blogarithms story for Metro this week is about the New York videoblog Rocketboom. And it comes with a little EiNY exclusive.
Over the past few months there’s been some speculation about the value of an advertising slot at the end of a Rocketboom segment. Jeff Jarvis was quoted in the New York Times (Times Select) in December as saying that based on 100,000 downloads a day one advert could cost $8,000.
Well, that was almost two months ago. Rocketboom now gets 130,000 downloads a day. And producer Andrew Baron and presenter Amanda Congdon are about to find out how much that’s worth. Next week they will auction off Rocketboom’s first week of advertising on eBay.
What makes this auction even more interesting is that the winning bidder will have to relinquish control of the advertising to Baron and Congdon who are going to make the adverts themselves. If a company insists on making its own advert, then Congdon and Baron will vet it (and exercise a veto) before it runs. And this policy will apply to all future adverts on Rocketboom.
I’ll leave it to the advertising experts to make of the policy what they will. But if Rocketboom’s ads are as good as the show, you can almost guarantee a large slice of the audience will stick around to watch it.
Metro does not publish Blogarithm stories online but you can download a pdf of today’s newspaper here. Alternatively here’s a copy of the story in my clips archive. Below are a few of my favorite Rocketboom episodes of the past year.
Rocketboom links:
There’s this upbeat tribute to John Lennon on the 25th anniversary of his death.
Excerpts from an evening at the Gotham Comedy Club.
And the irrepressible Julio and Lupita.
UPDATE: The ad is up and running. See the latest post here.
20 Comments
January 27th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Ah, but don’t forget this one!
January 27th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Thanks Meredith! It is an awesome episode…
January 27th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Rocketboom, CSI…and eBay Auction for Ads
Rocketboom’s Amanda Congdon to be on the TV show CSI on Feb. 2. And Rocketboom to sell ads through eBay auction.
January 27th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
I hope they figure it out and start getting ad revenue. We’re looking to adopt a very similar model for our site which is fledgling but to which we are committed. Good luck Rocketboom.
January 28th, 2006 at 6:28 am
[...] Next week, Rocketboom is going to auction off its advertising on eBay and force the winning advertisers to let Rocketboom make the ads. 99.999 percent of media buyers won’t get this. But somebody will be cool enough to try. [...]
January 28th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
While rocketboom is a great program and i watch it every day through my tivo. I do need to say that the sound quality of amanda’s voice audio needs to be improved. It appears in this photo that the room used to record rocketboom is a room with hardwood floors. It would be very good if they could record in a room that did not have so much echo in the audio track. I think it is smart that they are trying to keep the majority control over how advertisers are presented on the show. This way the can be more sensitive to the viewers and actually present sponsor messenging in a more blended way with content.
January 28th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Rocketboom to Sell Ad Time Via eBay, Retain Creative Control
The madly successful video podcast Rocketboom, which garners 130,000 downloads per day, has decided to accept advertising and will do so by auctioning off ad time on eBay. Rocketboom, produced by Andrew Baron and anchored by Amanda Congdon, will…
January 28th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
[...] Popular video blog, Rocketboom will auction off advertising time on Ebay, according to a report by Paul Berger of Englishman in New York blog. Berger is a freelance writer who’s stories have appeared in the New York Times. With 130,000 downloads a day, producer Andrew Baron and presenter Amanda Congdon are looking to get support for the production work, time and networking support it takes to push out a video blog every day.Technorati Tags : Rocketboom, Vlog, Ebay [...]
January 29th, 2006 at 2:19 am
[...] The latest of the two items, was something passed along by Jeff Jarvis, who found this at a blog called Englishman in New York: Rocketboom … producer Andrew Baron and presenter Amanda Congdon are about to find out how much that’s worth. Next week they will auction off Rocketboom’s first week of advertising on eBay. [...]
January 29th, 2006 at 8:44 am
What a fantastic idea! Very savvy of Rocketboom! I will be watching the auction with cheers and good wishes!
Nerissa Oden
FreeVideoCoding.com
January 29th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
8 Grand…Whew!
If you can’t afford that you could advertise on my Vlog. Not as good looking but hey, who is?
January 29th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
I am very excited that this approach may be used by any video or audio podcast that wants to have advertising as part of their programming. I think it’s brilliant of Andrew and Amanda to take this approach. Their lead is one I hope to follow.
January 30th, 2006 at 6:05 am
[...] (via Englishman in New York) [...]
January 30th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I hadn’t really been on the RocketBoom bandwagon…
until I watched http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/archives/2006/01/rb_06_jan_20.html“>this. I’m in. (even if they are gonna start taking advertising)…
January 30th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I hadn’t really been on the RocketBoom bandwagon…
until I watched this. I’m in. (even if they are gonna start taking advertising) Should we bid?…
January 30th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
[...] Englishman in New York writes Rocketboom now gets 130,000 downloads a day. And producer Andrew Baron and presenter Amanda Congdon are about to find out how much that’s worth. Next week they will auction off Rocketboom’s first week of advertising on eBay. [...]
January 30th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
[...] Hasta ahora no habÃÂan aceptado publicidad pero con 130.000 suscriptores diarios acaban de decidir que van a empezar a agregar un comercial al final de cada VLog… pero encontraron dos cosas muy interesantes en el modelo de incorporarla: 1- El espacio se va a subastar en eBay para ver quien paga más 2- El anunciante solo va a pagar, y va a quedar totalmente fuera del proceso creativo! [...]
February 11th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Rocketboom’s Online Advertising Auction Wrap-Up
This week marked the end of Rocketboom’s Ebay auction for a week’s worth of end-roll advertising. The auction started at $500 on January 30th, climbed to $7,500 within two days, stalled at $14,999.99 on February 2nd for six days, then spiked near the…
March 7th, 2006 at 10:21 am
[...]  Rocketboom is up to over 130,000 downloads a day now, and said they were going to auction ads on eBay (source: Blogarithms). [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
[...] Two more stories about Rocketboom below. whatsnextblog.com pdberger.com [...]