RocketBoom, a short video blog newscast produced each weekday, continues to generate buzz. The video blog or vlog now receives 25,000 downloads each day. The star of RocketBoom is
anchorwoman Amanda Congdon, an aspiring actress who the Associated Press says first appeared on NBC's The Restaurant as a disgruntled coat-check girl. An AP article praises Congdon for making the RocketBoom vlog interesting:
Congdon is reason enough to watch Rocketboom. A fizzy ingenue with a mischievous streak, she bridges the gap between the program's dual missions: to be a newscast homage and a new media breakthrough. She makes Rocketboom comfortable and cool, all at the same time.
"We wanted to have a creative video blog that would be palatable," she says. "A lot of the video blogs out there are by someone in their bedroom, half-awake. Mainstream America is not going to want to watch that. We wanted to get people watching stuff online, to get people interested in this new medium."
Congdon answered a Craiglist casting call placed by Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron in order to get the anchorwoman job. The AP reports that Baron has recently added more correspondents to RocketBoom:
Baron has recently hired correspondents in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and
Boston. To make the venture pay, he peddles ad time at the end of each report.
How big, how lucrative, how revolutionary could Rocketboom become?
Nothing is sure except this: Technology won't hold it back. From day one
it blanketed the globe, issuing forth from a consumer-grade videocam
and a laptop.
