Here’s my second interview with Chas Edwards, VP at Federated Media, the new company started by John Battelle that links advertisers with bloggers and community sites.
Lots of vloggers are trying to figure out a viable ad model. Robert Scoble has been wondering about this topic this week and his musings have spawned scores of comments on his blog, including one from me.
Chas says the ad model is still being sorted out and he’s not sure about the post roll/pre-roll video insertion issue quite yet.
What he does like is the "custom" ads being created for individual marketers by Rocketboom — these are in the form of post roll ads. However, while these ad are effective for one site, Chas says that they are not necessarily "scalable" for use on other sites.
Well, I think Rocketboom has it right: niche publishing can thrive with relevant advertisers. I agree with Blip.TV’s Mike Hudack who told me back in June that this period is like the "golden age" of television, where advertising was secured by a sole show sponsor. These brands did very well as sponsors back in the day: Geritol, Alcoa, Lucky Strikes, etc. I wonder which will be the brands to succeed with using online video????? (You can find Chas’ first interview here.)
Might Honda Be a Hot Vlog Brand? — CNET has just launched a video blog about new tech products with the appealing and informative hosts — editors James Kim and Veronica Belmont. It’s part of the new Crave blog from CNET. Honda is the sponsor of the vlog. I think the 12-second ad, with music by Elvis, is very entertaining.
Geek Chic! — Here’s a shot of Veronica Belmont (left), co-host of the new Crave vlog on CNET along with her pal and fellow cutting edge vlogger Irina Slutsky.
Programming Notes
Stay tuned to Beet.TV for a series of amazing interviews with Rocketboom’s Andrew Barron. Plus the lowdown on the iPod on its fifth anniversary (Monday) from Steven Levy of Newsweek who brought the world’s biggest iPod (sort of) to the Beet.TV studios on Friday afternoon — more on that shortly!
Chas Edwards, Federated Media, Online Publishing, Television, John Battelle, Video Ads, Rocketboom
