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August 2, 2007

WebbAlert: A Lot Like Rocketboom, Except It’s Interesting

Michael Arrington

121 comments »

WebbAlert, a new daily (Monday - Thursday) video news show hosted by X-Play’s Morgan Webb, launches this morning at 2 am PST. The focus of the show will be the major breaking technology and gaming news of the day. Like Rocketboom, each show will be no more than 5 minutes long, for easy consumption. Unlike Rocketboom, I’ve been able to sit through a whole episode - the early content that I’ve seen, including the pilot, is interesting and compelling.

Webb, who’s 28, has the on-air confidence of Lindsay Cambell from Wallstrip, and enough technical knowledge to do a fairly deep dive into the subjects she’s discussing. She has a degree in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley and was a web developer for a while after college. As an aside, she’s also fairly hot - Webb’s pictures have been in FHM and Maxim magazine, and in April she was voted the 51st sexiest woman in the world in a FHM survey.

Webb also “gets” how new media sites gain quick traction by embracing the community. The show will focus on tech and gaming news and will be featuring blog posts that break and cover the news over traditional news outlets. That will put her in the good graces of the bloggers, who will be more likely to link to the show over time.

This is mostly a one-woman show. Webb writes, creates and produces the content, even doing her own camera work. She works out of her at-home studio. Her husband Rob Reid (founder of Listen.com, exec at Rhapsody) is co-founder and handles the business side of things.

WebbAlert has not raised capital, and the show’s very low cost basis means they don’t necessarily have to, either. This could be a winner - blogs will want to get mentions on WebbAlert and, as with TechMeme, will see it as a badge of honor.

The first episode is embedded below.

Update: I should have mentioned the excellent TeXtra videocast in the post as well, since it in a very similar format. It’s hosted by Natalie Del Conte, a former TechCrunch writer, and covers very similar news items as WebbAlert. A key difference is that while TeXtra is also almost certainly sourcing its stories from blogs, they are rarely (never?) credited, giving bloggers little incentive to watch or link to it. I think the slight tweak that WebbAlert gave the model is going to work out very well for them. And perhaps Natalie will begin to add sources to the stories she talks about as well.

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Comments

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  1. Steve Spalding

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:21 am

    Very cool. Morgan has been a pretty decent analyst from way back in her TechTV days. I have been wondering what she has been up to. It’ll be interesting to watch, and considering the recent Wallstrip buyout this might be the perfect time for a another entrant into the vlogging as news game.

  2. Json

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:25 am

    I

  3. Marshall

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:26 am

    Sorry, but the rss feed has a typo in the first link “whww”.

  4. Don Park

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 am

    Not. She is too pretty and Jim Carrey imitation doesn’t help either. Wallstrip gal strips news better IMHO. Sorry Webb.

  5. Jak Refles

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 am

    “Web writes, creates and produces the content, even doing her own camera work.”

    Webb.

  6. Json

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 am

    I dunno what happened to my original post, but I love Morgan. She’s a hot geek goddess. A curse on all your families that disagree!

  7. Xplay

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:33 am

    Very nice Video !!!

  8. Yezidi

    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:01 am

    She’s real purdy. *slackjawed chuckle*

    I will be checking out her “WebbAlerts regularly!

  9. Duncan

    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:29 am

    Agree with what MarkB said, the contents good, its just her presentation which suffers a bit, I think it would help if they loosened up the framing a little as well. Still, not bad for a first edition!

  10. Tom

    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:35 am

    It certainly is more engaging cause of the girl. Wow, jst look at her expressions. I cud watch the show with the voice turned off ;)

  11. Joe

    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:43 am

    @ Tom, I agree… brought back memories of early Britney Spears videos

  12. Joe

    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:44 am

    (not to say the content is in any way analogous)

  13. Mike

    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:55 am

    Nice show,

    Anyone know what software is used to create the special effects in the show.. zooming in, and tilting the webpage and more…

    If she created the whole thing her self, it must be a easy software to use, not to say that she cant use a harder software!!! …lol

    cheers

  14. Roger

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:00 am

    I’m a fan - it kind of puts the ‘blog’ in videoblog. Hits all the key stories, links to great blog postings on both the big stories of the day & some of the offbeat & fun stuff as well. I like to spend a hr or so each day reading tech blogs, but don’t always have the time, and this’ll be good cliff notes on the days when I’m pressed and can’t read it all myself.

  15. Joost

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 am

    Yeah, when you say “it’s interesting”, don’t you mean to say “she’s hot”?

  16. FSFunky

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 am

    Can’t subscribe to it in iTunes, so I’m probably not going to follow it that closely.

  17. Agile

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:12 am

    I think it usually takes a few days/weeks for iTunes to pick new vblogs up in the directory, so I’d give her a bit of time. It only went up today, right? I like the “cliff notes’ analotgy someone made btw. I think this will be a time leverager, for me. And yes, yes, she is very cute!

  18. Michael Vu

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 am

    Pretty cool stuff. The more of these, the better. Pretty girl too.

  19. Matt Harwood

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 am

    Why no comments allowed on the episodes? Or am I just missing them?

    The show was OK, found it slightly OTT but on the whole I’ll check it out again!

  20. Peter Cooper

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:30 am

    Despite a reasonable execution, the key problem here is that the info she gives could as easily be given in four or five paragraphs you could read in about 30 seconds. Should we celebrate four minutes of video replacing several paragraphs of text? I don’t know. If you just want the eye candy, then great, but if it’s really about “keeping up to date” with stuff, you don’t need this inefficiency!

  21. Allen Stern

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:51 am

    Here is my confusion point. We talk about the fact that blogs bring us the news immediately and that old media (both web and offline) bring it to us a day later. Webb says she is going to do the same thing so why is she heralded as something more?

    Rocketboom typically brings us time-independent stories so I believe that’s why it has worked. Here is my interview with Joanne and Andrew:
    http://www.centernetworks.com/.....rocketboom

    Webb will be able to get her audience over from g4 and will be a success based on that. She already seems to have advertisers (ars) which she pimps in the video. I can’t wait until the first boing boing reference!

    I also agree with #21 Peter.

  22. JP

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:29 am

    Not sure how you can say it’s more interesting than Rocketboom at this point. I watched about one minute and couldn’t take any more. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know in advance.” That’s okay, Morgan. I’m already not watching.

  23. geomark

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:39 am

    She’s hot? Man, you guys are starved.

  24. Potter Bailey

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:41 am

    I had not idea how hot Morgan Webb had become. She annoyed the crap out of me when she joined Extended Play back before it was called X-Play… and back when the network was still called TechTV. I never cared for her and thought she was ok looking, but yowza. Do a Google Image Search for her and you’ll find some “wow, wow” material from FHM and Maxim!

  25. kf

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:42 am

    Please don’t place mention this show in the same post as WallStrip - their quality and production top to bottom is leaps and bounds better than Webbalert. And host Campbell is actually good…not just a pretty face.

    Also, this show is noooot more interesting than rocketboom and not even close to being in the same league.

    If you want informative and entertaining Geek news then head over to GeekBrief.TV http://geekbrief.podshow.com/ and enjoy Cali’s excellant show.

    I think I just got dumber watching webbalert.

  26. Hammer

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:52 am

    I’d hit it

  27. Joerg

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:55 am

    Why do speakers in video blogs always have to overact so much? I can’t stand it…

  28. MK

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 am

    Ah, seems Mike is biased towards Webb? :P

  29. biz.inc

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 am

    lol - i don’t want to sound old fashion, but i prefer the voice credibility of a male. i always usually think females use their sex appeal to get where they are, or just to otherwise captivate an audience for not the true substance of the story.

  30. Joe

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 am

    Hey.
    Back up off of Rocketboom. I like that show.
    And by the way:

    “The focus of the show will be the major breaking technology and gaming news of the day. Like Rocketboom, each show will be no more than 5 minutes long, for easy consumption.”

    Yeah. Cause that’s what the web’s been missing.

  31. Nother Thing

    August 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 am

    Anyone remember Cat Schwartz from TechTV? She was a cutie too. It would be cool if she sat in for Morgan when she wasn’t available.

  32. The Musicians Network

    August 2nd, 2007 at 6:56 am

    Great idea with awesome content! I love it.
    …and a hot geek girl?
    I’m a huge fan already.

  33. LonelyBloggers

    August 2nd, 2007 at 6:58 am

    Wow, I can’t believe the comments here. Mike since when was your audience a bunch of old guys that don’t don’t like women? see comment #30 - I can watch the old-school media guys on TV anyday thanks..

    Rocketboom died the day Amanda left and Wallstrip (yawn)…

    Morgan has a huge following from G4/X-Play, you know the younger, hipper guys that don’t wear Dockers every day of the week like I suspect that most of the guys that made comments above do. She’s reviewed all of my favorite video games even….

    Morgan pulls off her first video just fine. Give her crew a chance to improve on what they’ve started here… It’s quirky, interesting and I like the format.

    Go Morgan! I’ll be tuning in and so will a lot of other people…

  34. Rb

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:00 am

    i was actually watchin some of it with the sound off LOL

    (Was at work)

    -Rb

  35. kappy

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 am

    There’s another great new video blog that I stumbled upon recently: http://www.ampolo.com.

    Even though it has nothing to do with techy stuff, I think the host is great and the content is very original. It’s basically a site that gives away a wide variety of ideas for free…hoping someone will take one of them and actually do something with it. And no, there’s no catch…I thought the same thing too!

  36. Jeffrey

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:02 am

    WebbAlert is currently at 3 million plus on Alexa. Surely it will beat my ranking in no time.

    She looks pretty when she doesn’t talk. She moves her head a lot. I will probably be a regular of that site though.

  37. Jeff Marks

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:07 am

    Morgan Webb is grrreat, but of course she’s no Lindsay Campbell…not even close! Of course I’m biased though, I’m one of the producers of Wallstrip ;)

  38. Allen Stern

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:12 am

    #37 - I included the neck movements in my review:
    http://www.centernetworks.com/.....ow-its-hot

    If she moved back a foot from the camera, it would help.

  39. Weasel

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:15 am

    feed://feeds.feedburner.com/webbalert

    Just paste this link into iTunes under advanced… subscribe podcast… and it works.

    Always liked Morgan from the TechTV days.

  40. jccalhoun

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 am

    “Her Husband Rob Reid…”
    You have just put a stake through the heart of millions of fanboys!

  41. Greg

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:29 am

    That’s a pretty sweet burn in the title.

    Anyway, I think this has potential, and I like that Webb is apparently a big fan of Gawker, since she cited Valleywag and Kotaku, just in the first show.

    The biggest problem I see is that she’s talking too fast, like she’s trying to cram 10 minutes of content into a 5 minute clip. It feels like she’s rushing through every segment, to get to the next one. Which makes me feel like I’m rushing through Webb Report to get to something else. I’ll take lower content if it means a more measured delivery.

  42. Ian

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:41 am

    Sorry, but I just find her kind of annoying and distracting to watch. I agree she’s good looking, but is that all it takes to please some of you?

  43. Derek

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:47 am

    It’s funny to hear all these people talk about how Morgan is “Overacting” or “Valley Girlish”. They obviously never watched her on G4 or Tech TV. She has always acted like that, and it works for her.

    I think this show has legs. I look forward to catching it (unregularly)

  44. Drew

    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:50 am

    Heh, thanks for defense everyone in the comments. Michael, I know you dont watch the show so I appreciate the nod. I dont take subjective opinions about the content personally, different people like different things and I never expect anyone to like it.

    Morgan’s seem’s cool, it’s nice to have some more options out there.

    Word to the wise for all jumping in: A talking head and webpage text is not taking full advantage of the medium. When 10000 people write headlines about the same thing, the video format has the opportunity to provide more.

    Providing entertaining and compelling information in visual form is something we are challenged by (and often fail on) everyday. I hope that this new show will do more to provide us with more than headlines that we could more quickly read.

    Michael, I’d love to see you next. If you did a weekly forum with several other CEO’s, I dont think it would be just another boring talk show. It would prob be really entertaining because it could get really heated and the CEOs might say things that we dont usually get to hear them say. Thus, we could all learn a lot more about how businesses work, in a somewhat entertaining way, right from the horses’ mouths.

  45. Aaron R.

    August 2nd, 2007 at 8:06 am

    For a one “gal” show, the production value is quite good. Perhaps too good because I would have liked to have seen this yesterday as more breaking news but I’m sure it takes time to put this all together. The problem is that I already learned about all this news, mostly from TechCrunch. Although beating Michael to the punch is a near impossible feat.

    Morgan is gorgeous…which will definitely keep the guys coming back. You add an attractive tech head to the mix and I’m a happy guy. The content was well collected but if you want people to watch for the information, it’s going to have to get out ASAP.

  46. Jay

    August 2nd, 2007 at 8:24 am

    Very cute.

  47. mikx

    August 2nd, 2007 at 8:38 am

    Seems it does not work with Internet Explorer 6 (at least on two virtual machines i tested). Wow, that’s rejecting quite a lot potential viewers if true…

    Can someone else confirm?

  48. Zia

    August 2nd, 2007 at 8:52 am

    Interesting…let’s see how long she lasts…

  49. Ronald Lewis

    August 2nd, 2007 at 8:59 am

    At the end of the day, no one will care about the content — just the face that’s delivering the news. If I were a woman, I’m sure I’d be far ahead of the game in new media than I am now.

  50. Narendra

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:00 am

    Repeating the headlines doesn’t seem to be taking the medium up a notch.

    RB sometimes falls flat but when they nail a show it is very much a work of art.

    This feels more like something from CNET news.com. For a different take on tech, I’d rather see Mike put up 60 seconds of mediocre video (bad lighting, no makeup) and just spout gratuitous opinion like a caller into the Jim Rome show. Have a take, don’t suck.

    Record it with your iphone. Doh, it can’t do that yet.

  51. Sarah Meyers

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:01 am

    Morgan’s show is good, but I agree with the others- it’s not better than RB!
    Mike, I don’t know why you are not linking to Rocketboom after how many times you mentioned them.

    http://rocketboom.com

  52. Hasan Luongo

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:10 am

    Mike, RocketBoom was not 100% tech obsessed, which made it interesting to the like 100 million other folks out there. WebbAlerts is a cool new entrant, nice to see startups that have yet to score 5 million in funding get a little playtime on TC.

  53. tyler

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 am

    great job Morgan!! love the new show

  54. Nerd Forum

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 am

    Looks pretty awesome to me. If I ever have a lot of time, I’ll probably watch a bunch of shows at once.

  55. how about a 10

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:15 am

    i could only imagine what a “10″ girl doing a tech news blog would do because she’s maybe a 5 or 6.

    and don’t tell me it’s about the news and content. if you put a 9 or 10 on a video blog it would at a minimum get 100,000+ viewers easy.

    problem is most tech dorks would wet themselves actually talking to a 10 so it won’t happen.

  56. Jeff

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:23 am

    Wait…she’s married? When did that happen? Gamers are crying their eyes out right now.

  57. Thomas

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 am

    I like it!

    Here is the iTunes subscription link:
    itpc://feeds.feedburner.com/webbalert

  58. EH

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:42 am

    I have no idea where people get the time to watch this stuff. She reminds me of Don LaPre.

  59. Deals and Coupons

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 am

    Very nice! I guess I can stop reading tech blogs now.

  60. Json

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 am

    She’s got a main page headline on Fark now, as well.

  61. jccalhoun

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 am

    I wonder why she is doing this? Is it to get her more exposure in case she wants to leave G4? (Or she sees the writing on the wall that G4’s days are numbered?)

  62. Antje Wilsch

    August 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 am

    fwiw - on Vista using ie7 the embedded whatever it is, is not showing up. It shows an empty box with a little grabger that says click to activate this control. Clicking on it does nothing. Might want to work on that player. Tried it on XP on a virtual machine and not working either. Works in FF. But IE is still ~70% of the browser users.

  63. Michael Arrington

    August 2nd, 2007 at 10:19 am

    Sarah - it was a simple late night oversight. Good catch.

  64. Dan Romero

    August 2nd, 2007 at 10:24 am

    Interesting to see that they are still asking for “tips” while they have advertising running on both the site and in the middle of the video.

  65. Frank Sinton

    August 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am

    Michael - Seems like you are talking about video blogs quite a bit lately. When is TechCrunch going to get serious about being a media company and start a daily video blog? Then maybe you could be included on this cool list of tech video bloggers:

    http://mefeedia.com/lists/12/

  66. Dominic

    August 2nd, 2007 at 10:46 am

    TIme for this one to go to archive. Nuff said already.

  67. Zark Muckerburger

    August 2nd, 2007 at 10:52 am

    @ 24. I smell a virgin.

  68. Bobby Andersen

    August 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 am

    #59 - LOL - she does remind me too of Don - great call!

    I think what’s interesting is that Mike and others think Morgan’s show is a potential winnner - so pimp her as much as possible so she will re-pimp back over and over? Interesting strategy!

  69. Michael Arrington

    August 2nd, 2007 at 11:02 am

    Bobby - exactly. But in all honesty, I really like the show. Perhaps it’s because she is covering, exactly, my areas of interest.

  70. Mike

    August 2nd, 2007 at 11:43 am

    “As an aside, she’s also fairly hot”

    Fucking grow up, Mike, and you lot mentioning how she looks in the comments, too. Go have a wank to get rid of your teenage frustrations then come back when you feel less sweaty.

  71. Jiggz

    August 2nd, 2007 at 11:48 am

    i love the report on valleyway on this post… hilarious!

  72. ThinkHammer

    August 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm

    It’s great looking video, sharply delivered. It does seem a bit like she is channeling Cali Lewis’ frenetic delivery and maybe even her voice. Only the video lets me know it isn’t Cali. It seems like she knows what her audience wants and is delivering it. Mike A hits it on the head when he says that Natalie is missing an opportunity by not crediting sources. Best of luck to Webb Alert. It’s a crowded space, but I’ve got to believe that the good stuff is going to eat the bad stuff’s lunch.

  73. rod

    August 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    You really like the show? The 1 5 minute show you’ve seen? You’ve got to be joking.

  74. Wayne Pan

    August 2nd, 2007 at 12:28 pm

    Just watched the textra podcast, it was PAINFUL. Webb is much more comfortable in front the camera than Del Conte.

  75. Richard

    August 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 pm

    There’s also a funny weekly tech show on bub.blicio.us every Friday: http://bub.blicio.us/?cat=10

  76. Allen Stern

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:08 pm

    Mike - nice job on adding Textra - I too had that in my review this morning as I think both are nearly identical in content. Good point about the linking- though the more I think about it, you and I might care about that, but is the average viewer thinking about that? Also, how many viewers will really click thru to another site (esp. if the show is watched on another embedded site). If embedded or viewed on the rss/itunes, the user must first click to webb’s site, then to the other site, a bit of work.

  77. Pierre

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    I don’t think I could put it better than Drew.

    Apart from content, why exactly is this better than Rocketboom? The presentation is why people choose to use video, and the presentation on WebbAlert isn’t as engaging or creative as Rocketboom.

    You may find Rocketboom’s quirk annoying, but I find no frills online video annoying. Give me something that won’t waste 5 minutes of my time when I could’ve spent 1 minute reading the headlines instead.

  78. JDoggg

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    morgan webb i love u!

    ps. anyone know the video software they use? i like those background and webb animations they do…please tell me!! please!!

  79. B S meter

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    boring…. could only stand watching about 30 seconds, despite her “eye-candy appeal”

  80. Shaun

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    I think the site has potential. Nice look to it. Does anyone have an idea on what software she is using for the site close ups? I want to do something similar for a real estate show. Thanks.

  81. Anand

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    Can the show be discussed on the very merits of the show itself…Men are starved the world over..

  82. sh

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:32 pm

    She is whiny.

  83. biz.inc

    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:44 pm

    i’d rather watch arrington in drag, than watch this lady video blogger.

    text is better, because it’s solely black and white text - so you get just the story.
    video blogs are subject to racism, sexism, fashion, hair, etc etc - thereby overshadowing the actual story

  84. webonics

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:13 pm

    Command-N has been around for a several months now with this same audience and coverage. Will Pate, 2006 Product Evangelist of the Year (Flock) is a co-host with Amber Mac.

    http://commandn.typepad.com/

  85. Sarah Meyers

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm

    Mike- Nice!

    :-)

    Thanks and I too would rather watch a Tech Crunch video with you on camera.

  86. Natali Del Conte

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:26 pm

    You’re right, I could credit sources a lot better. I’ve been trying to do that in my show notes but I don’t think I point enough emphasis there. If there is one thing TechCrunch taught me, it is how effective linking back can be. That will be my new Mid Year’s Resolution. Thanks for the compliment and suggestion, Mike!

    As for Morgan, she is the real deal. I’ve done shows with her for G4 before and she is as brilliant as she is nice and, of course, beautiful. I like this show. I’ll be watching for sure!

  87. Allen Stern

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm

    I agree #85 - I said last week that Amber is by far the best of the current female video blogger set.

  88. Mick

    August 2nd, 2007 at 2:35 pm

    Nice presentation and lots of good info, but that voice! Fingernails on blackboards.

  89. patricia

    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:28 pm

    What I think is the growing trend of video - versus print - blogs cropping up lately, that they’re mainly being lead thus far by women (except Om’s new show) and whether or not they’ll evetually match the number of print in the near future, what print blogs will do about it, etc. It’s an interesting little prospective disruption. I love internet video. I think everybody should be in it.

    I broke the sound on my laptop on Friday so it’s pointless to watch this, but any evolution in produced (versus amateur) video for internet play is good at the moment. I think things are moving a long as expected.

    Very cool.

  90. Testicles

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 pm

    She’s not ugly.

  91. Testicles

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm

    #90, trust me, you don’t want audio. Just the latop and some privacy.

  92. JLumb

    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    I’d always thought hot girls and technology were like chalk and cheese.

    We need a girl like this in our office, slightly more appealing that 5 lame coders.

  93. meanguy

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:22 pm

    it’s infinitely more interesting than rocketboom — if for no other reason than there’s actually an ad in it.

    andrew baron’s new rocketboom “sponsorship” concept where he names drop a company at the end 1) without charging the company and 2) without even asking the company first doesn’t really count as a business model.

    the dude’s gone from having fake viewers (busted by BusinessWeek no less) to having fake sponsors. gotta love web video.

  94. Dan

    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:38 pm

    “Webb also “gets” how new media sites gain quick traction by embracing the community.”

    Seriously — the show doesn’t even allow comments. How is THAT embracing the community???

    There are plenty of other online shows out there, by far more engaging and “hot” hosts, doing more community driven, innovative things… So sad you don’t EVER mention them.

    How is reading headlines innovative?

    And yeah, Rocketboom should be respected, if nothing else. At least they are creative and push it.

  95. Ron K. Jeffries

    August 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm

    (putting on flame proof suit)

    The Webalert vlog is not bad, not great, but I prefer text.

    I was distracted watching her performance,
    asking myself, “are those cheek implants?”

    I have $20 on “probably yes.”

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  96. Dominic

    August 2nd, 2007 at 6:32 pm

    All you fellas done now? Get a nut did ya? Adults? nah….like the old days of AOL.

  97. Rumory.com

    August 3rd, 2007 at 12:07 am

    Not going to last for too long.. Mark my word

  98. Peter Cooper

    August 3rd, 2007 at 5:07 am

    Word to the wise for all jumping in: A talking head and webpage text is not taking full advantage of the medium. When 10000 people write headlines about the same thing, the video format has the opportunity to provide more.

    People used to say that about all singing, all dancing Flash Web pages back in the late 90s. Just because a good, new technology is available doesn’t mean that everything is better when that technology is used. Dull blogosphereish news seems like one of those things in this case. Hands-on reviews of products, however, now there’s a good use for video. Tours of companies or interviews like Scoble does, another good use. Mindless blathering about Web 2.0 detritus, nah.

  99. John Koetsier

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:58 am

    Two points:

    1) I echo the “valley girl presentation” comment above. She’s annoyingly cheerful and happy while presenting “news.” That’s a turn-off, to me.

    2) The whole videoblogging thing is interesting, but only when I’m on my couch. Guess I need an AppleTV or something. When I’m at my computer, I’m much more interested in reading actual articles, which I can get through in a fraction of the time.

  100. The Aesthetic Elevator

    August 3rd, 2007 at 9:32 am

    FWIW, I don’t think comparing this show to Rocketboom is an apples to apples comparison. We’ll see where Webb goes from here, but it seems her approach is much more like straight news — where Rocketboom isn’t afraid to go a little crazy from time to time and covers a lot of stuff not directly tied to the internet.

  101. The Aesthetic Elevator

    August 3rd, 2007 at 9:41 am

    Didn’t like the ad in the middle of the spot either . . . .

  102. David Mackey

    August 4th, 2007 at 5:02 pm

    I have to agree with one commenter above - prefer text to video.

  103. Bill Cammack

    August 5th, 2007 at 7:50 pm

    Thanks for the link to TeXtra. I watched the football episode, and it seems to be a well-produced show and the hostess has a lot of personality, which adds to the watchability of the show.

    As far as WebbAlert, granted, we’re only two shows in… but I think they need to change their framing so it doesn’t look like the hostess is crammed into the corner. I think the talent/screen ratio takes away from the watchability of the show, because it’s LITERALLY a “talking head”.

    I also agree with what others have said, that the point of doing a video is to have “value-added” content over the ability to access the same information in text and read it yourself in way less time.

    As far as comparisons to Rocketboom, two talking-head shows with ZERO edited pieces and ZERO correspondents doesn’t put this show in Rocketboom-League whatsoever.

    Other than that, congrats to Morgan on her one-woman show. I’ll be interested to see what goes on next week.

  104. eli

    August 25th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    Valleywag has come to the same conclusion (with evidence) that i came to in my comment above…

    http://valleywag.com/tech/conf.....293367.php

    It’s very disappointing because I’d hoped that blogging would be a higher form of journalism…

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