Let the bidding begin. The Rocketboom auction for one week’s advertising is up and running on eBay.

After just one hour last night the auction already had 16 bids, with the highest offer $2,000. There are 9 days and 11 hours left.

How much will it go for? $20,000? $40,000? $60,000? More? Place your bets. And take a good look at those terms and conditions:

For the highest bidder, we will create five original, fifteen second (minimum) – one minute (maximum) post-roll commercials that will span five days of programming, Monday-Friday, March 6 through March 10, 2006. Each day that week a different commercial that we create for your company will be played at the conclusion of the Rocketboom episode.

[...]The five unique advertisements, along with hyperlinks to your website, will also become a part of our archived web pages. They will remain freely available, searchable, index-able, re-distributable, and on demand. Additionally, direct links to each commercial will be available for at least one year.

As for Rocketboom’s “advertising philosophy:”

+We will never play invasive, pre-roll advertising in short form, video file content.

+We don’t believe in product placement and will not use this technique.

+We find that people come back to Rocketboom mostly because they enjoy the interesting stories we cover or exhibit from around the world. When we choose and create our stories, we opt for the most interesting and memetic material to make up each show. By creating the advertisements ourselves with the same intentions, we believe we can create the most effective scenario for both our audience and the advertiser.