Posted on March 2, 2006 at 3:12 PM in @earthlink
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
I spoke to Andrew at Rocketboom yesterday. The hardest working pair in vlogging are busy on a ton of new efforts, including coming up with the first ads for their first sponsor, TRM, and then starting work on stuff for their second sponsor, us.
(photo courtesy Rocketboom.com)
On the content side, they've in turns disgusted, delighted, and informed recently. I'm still ill from seeing a video of bare-chested Robert Scoble and Shel Israel on February 23. I forgave them on the 24th, after they made Senator John Edwards draw his favorite moustache on a likeness of himself. They introduced us to the Muncie, Indiana response to Lazy Sunday on the 28th (more on Lazy Sunday here), and then yesterday aired correspondent Ruud Elmendorp's report on Uganda's current elections.
They've changed formats to a widescreen, high definition aspect ratio (demonstrated here ), and are working on a beta version of their site for the Japanese-speaking audience, the subtitled Rocketboom.jp. They have several new projects in the works, including a show for kids and a news-focused archive of content (also in beta) at Humanwire.org.
Click the link below to read more about what's new over there.
On the advertising side, I think their approach is right on. Andrew explained that the daily ads will be self-contained and conceptual, but will also have a narrative thread running through them. Because Amanda stars in them and Andrew produces them with friend-of-Rocketboom director/editor Mario Librandi, they'll be consistent with the approach and style particular to the show. The approach reminds me of olde-tyme television variety shows where the same actors would take a break from the show to perform another sketch about a sponsor's product.
I really like efforts to make advertising smarter, more useful, and more focused. Another example I've been reading about recently is the Deck Advertising Network. This is a small group of sites that have a similar target audience, banded together to be picky about the types and number of ads they will take on their sites. They limit themselves to one ad per page, and limit the availability to advertisers that make sense for their readership. They won't take an advertiser unless they have personally tried out the product or service. If they can pull it off and meet their goals, I'll put a poster of them up in my bedroom.
Rocketboom's approach is bound to produce more engaging, unobtrusive, and enjoyable ads, but I wonder how well it can scale. Will Andrew and Amanda have time to sell and produce their normal load of content and daily ads with all of the approvals, timelines, and discussions that go along with that? I put the question to Andrew, and he said that although there's an increased workload, it's working out ok for now. When they have a queue of signed and potential advertisers lined up, he'd like to create an in-house ad sales and creative/ad production group, to make sure that ads always feel appropriate to the show.
As far as what the TRM ads will look like next week, I'm sworn to secrecy. Let's just say that Amanda may reveal another side of herself. A secret side.
The TRM ads will run starting next Monday, and the EarthLink ads will run the following week, March 13 - March 17. Visit our friends at Rocketboom.com starting on Monday morning to see how they all turned out.