Rocketboom, yea.

The successful vlog Rocketboom recently completed their ebay advertising experiment last week, scoring $40,000 to produce a week's worth of 10 to 15 second ads for someone by the name of starfinder5.

After a year of steadily increasing viewership with their ad free off beat and tech centric daily newscast, the Rocketboom team decided to enter the for profit arena by offering a week's worth of advertising on their show to the highest bidder in an Ebay Auction. The advertiser has no creative control over the ads, which will be produced by Rocketboom in their style. According to show host Amanda Congdon on their Friday episode, they have gotten quite a few calls since the auction ended from companies, both "cool" and "high profile". From a marketing perspective, this is fascinating. I want to see if they can sustain that kind of ad revenue over the long haul.

Of course, taken with their success must be the understanding that their product is really solid. A daily 3 minute show with a very strong brand identity and a loyal and growing viewership of early adopters. In terms of looking at content models that work on the web, Rocketboom is one of the best. In fact, it's the only video blog that I myself watch almost daily. And now their good product is getting good returns in their model. We'll all be watching to see how this model compares to the others out there, both in returns and in how well they maintain the integrity of their brand.

Regardless, though, it's a good day for Amanda and Andrew at Rocketboom, and a good day for independent web video.