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so how does this compare to the cost for tv advertising? What would advertisers normally pay for a thirty second spot? Now would be a good time to know exactly how many people are subscribed to Rocketboom. Their website only says:

"Rocketboom is currently one of the most popular videoblogs on the internet with more daily subscribers for original syndicated multimedia content than nearly any other site, including podcasts."

That's great, but what does it mean?

From the auction page on Ebay:
For the highest bidder, we will create five original, fifteen second (minimum) - one minute (maximum) post-roll commercials that will span five days of programming, Monday-Friday, March 6 through March 10, 2006. Each day that week a different commercial that we create for your company will be played at the conclusion of the Rocketboom episode.

Rocketboom reaches a minimum of 130,000 people per day and each day's video, over the course of several days, receives over 200,000 complete views. Thus, the advertisement reach for this auction is currently a minimum of one million views.

Comparing this to Television ad rates is an interesting excursive. Unforutnately, understanding Nielson ratings is a black art and television ad rates are generally tied to them. (These types of statistics are also notoriously "flexible".) In any case, it is hard to compare the "more than 130,000" people per day to a Nielson number that would be used when buying TV ads.

If you compare with ad rates for prime time television audiences, this is cheap, cheap, cheap. Especially for an focused and engaged audience (like Rocketboom probably delivers). Then again, the prime time television numbers are supposedly much much higher (my guess based upon Nielson ratings is that the average prime-time show has 10 times the audience for one episode than one week's worth of Rocketboom).

In any case, I am guessing that this is in-line with normal advertising rates, online or traditional.

More important, is that a "video blog" has been recognized as media worth "buying".

Checkout Nielson's "What Ratings Mean"

More can be found at http://www.admedia.org/

Rocketboom's EBay Auction Page

I think advertising on a podcasts is still really low in price because it is so new. I think that the price will soon rise to TV advertising. As soon as everyone (podcasters) catch on. Rocketboom paved a road and people will start using it. Check out this top 100 podcast that on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:31&item=5673612629