Earlier last month I posted about the lack of an obvious revenue model for RocketBoom in Rocketboom’s revenue model …. what is it? It was pointed out that RocketBoom was actually better off after Amanda left, with proof being the chart below:
But since there was no advertising on the site (most of the time) no one explained to me how Rocketboom would make money.
Well, Frank Barnako reports from Podcast Expo (according to Micro Persuasion) there is a revenue model and it’s healthy.
"Addressing the Saturday session of the Podcast Expo in Ontario, Calif., Baron said he’s just done a deal worth $80,000 for a week of commercials in his videoblog. Claiming a daily audience of some 300,000 people, Baron could be getting more than a $55 CPM for his ads.
You could get a discount, though. He’ll sell you a week of spots for $60,000 - if he likes the commercial content. "Ads should be consistent with the interest of our audience," Baron told the morning keynote audience. Rocketboom knows its audience and understands what they’re interested in, and tailors its content. An example would be "lifestyle" gadgets, like the new Nokia phone that can download podcasts. The same should apply to advertising. That means no ads, for instance, for home cleaning products, though, are out. "I’m only going to work with advertisers I want to work with," Baron said, "and I’m only going to run ads I like."
Rocketboom has other ways to generate revenue, and Baron said he’s going to exploit them, anew. One is merchandising. "We really suck at it," pointing out that Rocketboom has almost hidden the link for fans to purchase a T-shirt. "Yet, we bring in $4,000 a month on that one item," he said in something like amazement. "There’s a lot of potential. We need lots of shirts, and we ought to put them on the front page."
Baron also raised the possibility of a paid-version of Rocketboom. Congdon hinted at it last May. Subscribers paying $3.50 a month might have access to outtakes of Rocketboom episodes, lengthier segments and additional shows. "Imagine if I could get 10,000 people, a tiny fraction of our audience. That would mean $35,000 a month. I could have a family and we could all be happy at Rocketboom."
Such a small audience can generate big dollars for Rocketboom. Baron said big media like the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) will recognize the possibilities. "Soon, Disney is going to feel confident with an audience of 10,000, hard core, dedicated fans focused on specific content." And advertisers, he predicted, "will drool over such an audience because it will be so targeted."
So, lets look at what we can pick up from Web Analytics tools that are currently available and see what it tells us. Honestly, Andrew ought to go out and by a better Web Analytics package as I can’t even tell how many pageviews or visits he’s actually getting based on the chart above.
But….based on Alexaholic - there’s been little change - which might actually be good news - as they have a steady audience, maybe 5 million pageviews a day - if Alexaholic is any indication.
One thing that is problematic - RocketBoom is all most all Rich Media, QuickTime / Flash - it’s more difficult to measure Rich Media. Perhaps the best measure in this case, would be downloads of the QuickTime file.
In other words, the best way to do a measurement of a site like RocketBoom would be to take the total number of bytes downloaded per day and divide it by the average size of a Quick Time movie - and that would give you the estimated number of times a Quick Time movie was watched. More often than not, someone will only watch one movie a visit (the current one) so we can make a best guess the actual number of viewers this way.
Q
