I'm sure the amount of money being spend on a weekly vlog show might be shocking. But consider...
1) ABC needs to jump into online video and get an audience there. That's where the audience is going, so they need to learn and learn fast. Hiring someone of Amanda's stature is a high-profile way to do that. The costs of *not* getting involved and *not* learning how to earn an online audience probably far outweighs whatever they're spending. Survivial. 2) I'm personally glad it's a weekly show. I don't watch Rocketboom or any daily show every day. No time. Other people obviously do, but I tend to get my "fresh links" from TailRank, BoingBoing, etc. because it's less demanding of my attention and non-linear. If you found anny of that vaguely interesting, I posted more on my blog, which peaked in 2004: http://tinyurl.com/yhdaa5 --- In [email protected], andrew michael baron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On the topic of ABC's videoblog, I'm going to set aside all of the > technical problems everyone has already mentioned with the video > distribution and the ABC platform - the fact that there are no RSS > feeds, the comments are pre-approved and filtered (even when not > offensive), the video scrolls have been turned off, one is forced to > view long, irrelevant pre-roll ads that outlast many people's > curiosity and especially the closed platform with no mobile or local > potential. > > In otherwords, the only difference between this video platform and > one from say, 1997, is that for this one, at least the video does > come on and plays. > > Maybe they can hire someone who knows a thing or two about it. > > I'm going to suggest that the greatest failure of this project > however has to do with the severely expensive resources that are > being used for a product that can be much more valuable for a mere > fraction of the effort and costs. > > My question is, how much money did it take to produce this? > > Also, if all of the effort only goes into a once-a-week show, how > effective and interested are the people behind the show to take so > much time and money to do so little? > > For instance, we know they are probably paying Amanda a professional > salary. They are also paying two senior level producers for this. > Then there is at least one editor, a camera person (unless one of the > producers is a cameraman), lighting tech, audio guy, all with premium > 'ABC' salaries. I am just speculating, perhaps I have missed some. > > In addition to that, the entity ABC needs to make revenue (beside the > people), yet they also have at least one rep that works with Amanda > besides the producers and other production staff. Surely they have > someone who works on the website if not a section of a team. Amanda's > agent needs a professional share. Amanda's manager too. They > obviously have a very aggressive PR team too (which they will > definitely need to drive people to the show). Lets not forget the > advertisers! They are the ones supporting this and because so many > people need to get paid such high salaries, the advertisers need to > get paid most of the real-estate of the website. In many ways, this > scenario is typical of one where the advertisers are way more > important than the show itself. The show is just a tool for ad sales > in the end, after all. > > The point I want to make is, there are probably WAY too many people > needed to pull off this one 5 minute production exclusively for a > small flash file on one website. > > A company like ABC should perhaps use their expensive resources to > produce content that needs expensive resources. Was there special > access gained? Was there need for expensive equipment? Travel > expenses? 3 producers? > > No, there was no sign of any need for any of the above that I could see. >
