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What happens when you take Rocketboom, mix in the financial market and then court CBS? Well, you end up with a $600,000 dollar video podcast that has been acquired by one of televisions largest movers for an amount that was rumored to be $5 million dollars, but isn’t.

What Is Wallstrip

Wallstrip is the brainchild of Howard Lindzon, a blogger I occasionally follow over at The Blogging Times. It takes a few elements from breakout podcasts like Rocketboom and then puts a financial twist on it. All in all, it’s an entertaining piece of video. The question is not what Wallstrip is, however, but why would CBS want them.

Exploring the Vertical

My intuition is that CBS finally feels ready to explore social video and video podcasting, but they understand that they do not have the sort of corporate culture that understands how the system works. It’s very easy to create a video podcast for CBS and post it online, but to brand a podcast that can actually draw the crowds that you need to make waves on the internet, you need to have an intimate understanding of how new media works. CBS does not.

The internet has never been very forgiving to corporations that try to bring mainstream media sensibilities over the pond.

Fast forward a year later and you have Wallstrip, with its relatively high production values ($600,000 helps), its plucky host and enough clout to attract interviews from the like of Jimmy Wales and you can see why when compared to everything else currently out there — this would be one of the top properties that CBS would be interested in.

Web 2.0 Roundup

What does this mean? Not too much at the moment. It will be sometime before the co-branded effort really gets its CBS makeover. Until then, it might be better for us to sit back and watch. One interesting thing we can take from this, is something I read over at Young Go Getters. It fits in line with the little rant I had over at TechCrunch about The Valley earlier this morning.

There’s no way or reason why a show like that, Rocketboom, or any of the other video podcasts would need $600,000 to operate. You have a camera person, a host, a camera, some bandwidth, a video editing app, and the occasional prop.

I try not to make fun of old people, but it’s almost as if someone at CBS just learned what a podcast is and thinks it’ll be the next big thing. “This could be the edge we’ve longed for over other networks. Quick, write them a cheque!”

I am not sure how much I agree in this particular case (professional video equipment and staging doesn’t come cheap), but the basic idea is still there. Somewhere along the line, we may have lost track of how to run on a shoestring. Whether this is a bad thing, I will leave to you to decide.

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