In Perspective: 'The Show' faces off with Rocketboom

Saturday 28 October 2006

'The Show' faces off with Rocketboom

"Rocketboom" gets 10-fold more downloads than "The Show with Ze Frank". Both are popular video podcasts (aka video blog, vlog, vodcast). Rocketboom's downloads/view numbers went up after it got some press over the leaving of its presenter, Amanda Cogdon.

In previous episodes, especially recently, Ze Frank has lightly attacked Rocketboom (if subtly). In an episode explaining his guide to video podcasting ("the ins and outs of video blogging"), Ze put his view on inflating (i.e. falsely making higher) your reported view/download numbers for any Web content in this way: "If you want to be popular, just go ahead and say you are. I call it Rocketbooming" ('[no relation to Rocketboom the popular video podcast]'). Ze Frank lends his opinion on what he calls "rocketbooming", falsely inflating numbers. This post comes in light of Ze coining the term recently in an episode of "The Show with Ze Frank", his popular video podcast. During the episode, Ze also showed his distain for Alexa's often questionable ratings (i.e. ranking and measuring of Web hits) for websites. In addition, there has been increased friction between Ze and the Rocketboom (whom the term is directed at) team.

Ze concluded his recent post on "rocketbooming" and the flaws in the site ranking and view measuring services with this:

Rocketboom might very well have more eyeballs than Ask A Ninja, Amanda Across America, or any of the currently popular video shows. But it's important to question not only what those numbers are and where they're coming from, but also whether the eyeballs these shows claim to have are even open.

Ze Frank's "The Show" is so much better on all levels than Rocketboom is or ever was. The Show is witty, informative, and fun; Rocketboom just seems to be an over-hyped video podcast about random things, which, while it may often be interesting, Ze Frank still kicks Andrew Baron and Joanne Colan's asses. The Show deals with offbeat things (as does Rocketboom), but also covers other current event-related issues and presents useful, or at least interesting, facts and commentary. Rocketboom often focuses on one thing (like an expo), or covers many tiny things with little, if any, perspective.

Too bad "the show" is — according to Ze — going to be stopped next spring! I watch both shows on my iPod every weeknight, but watch Rocketboom first (as to save the best, i.e. The Show, for last). I will make a list of some of my favourite podcasts and their ratings (in my opinion) soon; I get all my podcasts off of iTunes and put onto my iPod G5 ('iPod with video').

* The Show on Ze Frank's website
* Rocketboom