David Kushner claims that Video blogs are ready for prime time:
Amanda Congdon, 24, is running through the wintry streets of Manhattan in a purple cape and leotard. This may not seem like a milestone in Internet history, but it is: The perky actress is starring in the first commercial to be aired in a brand-new medium – the video blog, or vlog. Her silly superheroics are worth $40,000.Congdon is the host of Rocketboom, a satirical news show and the most popular vlog on the Net. Despite having no budget, Rocketboom has 250,000 visitors a day, and that number is rising fast. Now Congdon and producer Andrew Baron are taking a cue from the ad-driven revenue of top bloggers: “We want to make a business out of vlogging,” Congdon says.
With the proliferation of devices like the video iPod, the vlog boom is on. As of March there were more than 6,500 vlogs, says directory Mefeedia.com, compared with fewer than 300 a year earlier. Apple’s iTunes store has offered vlogs for download as video podcasts since October, giving sites like Rocketboom a potential audience of 40 million iPod users.
And there’s good news for vloggers who want to monetize their fame: Advertisers are getting more comfortable with online video spots. In the United States, Internet video ads brought in $225 million in 2005 and are expected to break the $1 billion mark in 2008, according to eMarketer, a New York research firm. “Vlogs are very targetable,” says eMarketer analyst David Hallerman. “They’re small, but they have a niche audience.”
They also operate with amazingly low overhead. Baron, a former professor at Parsons school of design in New York, found Congdon through an ad on Craigslist. Now they write, shoot, and edit five new shows a week, each shorter than five minutes, in Baron’s apartment. Increasingly, they rely on a team of freelance correspondents — Rocketboom fans — from around the world. “The show is just whatever we find interesting,” Congdon says.