Andrew Baron
Template:Infobox Internet celebrity
Background
Andrew Michael Baron, born 1970, is the creator of Rocketboom. Baron holds a BA in Philosophy from Bates College and an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design. Baron has taught undergraduate and graduate classes at Parsons and was teaching at M.I.T. when he came up with the idea for Rocketboom.
Career
On August 19, 2005, Baron was interviewed on CBS Evening News. In an "Eye on America" segment CBS veteran Jim Axelrod commented on the effort at daily news coverage on a limited budget and Baron's grasp of the next Internet wave. "You know what they call that? Vision." [1]
Baron directed a portion of "Killer," an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation which aired February 2, 2006.
In November 2006, an analysis by BusinessWeek revealed that Baron provided incorrect web viewership statistics. BusinessWeek retracted a previous story "cutting in half the original estimate... to 78,500 downloads" and noted that Rocketboom refused "to let any third party... verify these stats."[1]. In response, Baron explained that the larger percentage of Rocketboom view counts come from off-site statistics such as YouTube, Yahoo Video and dozens of other 3rd party distribution partners.
In March 2006, Baron commented on the sale of a week of advertising for $40,000 on eBay in Brandweek:
- "Advertising with us has extra value, because we aren't going to accept advertising from someone whose morals are against us, someone like Hummer," said Rocketboom producer Andrew Baron. The creators of the show are acting as ad agency as well as media for the ads for TRM and EarthLink. "We've got to approve the ads and if we like them, chances are our viewers will like 'em." [2]
In April 2006, Baron claimed 300,000 Rocketboom viewers. He signed distribution with TiVo and turned down buy-out offers from two major TV networks.
- "I think we could go a lot further on our own," Baron told Rolling Stone. "If you can do it, why not do it your way?" [3]
American Journalism Review noted that, at the time, Rocketboom was reaching more viewers than most local TV newscasts:
- "A staff of four... produce a daily information program that reaches more people than almost any single local newscast in America."
Baron has inspired and influenced many other notable videoblogs including Epic-Fu (formally The Jet Set Show) for which he was a co-founder and 50% partner. Baron also co-created Pop17 with Sarah Meyers for Rocketboom.
References
- ^ Green, Heather (2006-11-16). "The Continuing Saga of Rocketboom Numbers and Yanking Our Estimate". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
- Axelrod, Jim. CBS Evening News: "Eye on America" (August 19, 2005)[4]
- Farhi, Paul. "Rocketboom!": American Journalism Review (June-July, 2006) [5]
- Goldstein, Andrew M. "The Rise of the Video Blog," Rolling Stone, April 21, 2006. [6]
- Barnako, Frank: Rocketboom May Charge for Shows (Mar 22, 2007) [7]