Monday, December 12, 2005

Video Blogging In The New York Times

Thanks to Sunday's New York Times, I know more about video blogs, or vlogs. Amanda Congdon and Andrew Baron have been producing a vlog called Rocketboom for the past 14 months and have quietly achieved an online viewership of roughly 100,000.

Simply put, Ms. Congdon reports, in a slightly quirky way, events and newsworthy items from around the globe. Mr. Baron produces the show out of his one-bedroom apartment. And what had to have started as more of a fun project and excellent way to goof around than a vision for making money, has now become a very serious money making experience.

It is estimated in the article that they could sell advertising at the end of each show for a fair price of $8,000, or $2 million a year. TiVo has, in fact, recently signed a deal to list Rocketboom in its directory giving the creators 50 percent of associated ad revenue. With the added publicity of The New York Times and TiVo, this goofy little side project is certain to just get bigger and bigger.

Well done, video bloggers. I've checked out Rocketboom and like what I've seen so far.

Here are the links:

TV Stardom On $20 A Day

Rocketboom

2 comments:

Vickie said...

Wow! Impressive! I'm always envious of those creative thinkers who actually put those simple ideas into action and wind up making a fortune. Like the lady who thought up the Baby Einstein videos. I mean, how easy, to set up some moving toys and puppets to classical music and suddenly she's created a huge demand! What's funny is that so many of us have similar ideas floating in our heads from time to time but the difference is we just don't act on it.

Job well done, Amanda Congdon and Andrew Baron!

Anonymous said...

Okay, so now I know I cant hold back on any of my ideas. I have to charge into them full speed but well planned. This story is very inspiring and fun to read. It's one thing to have the ideas but to get them out there is a whole different ball game. I hope to be mentioned in your blog one day just like this article.