The Rocketboom Saga: Condensed
Jul 7th, 2006 | By James Lewin | Category: Video Podcasts, VlogsThe public split of Rocketboom co-producers Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon is too convoluted to make much sense of and it’s starting to get ugly.
Here’s a condensed version of the events that have been made public:
- Amanda Congdon announces she’s been UnBoomed, saying that Baron no longer wanted to be her partner.
- Baron said that it was news to him. “I have just learned of this myself from watching Amanda’s video,” posted show co-creator Andrews Baron to the Yahoo! videoblogging group. “I guess it is in fact over.”
- The job offers start rolling in for Congdon. The most colorful comes from Weblogs, Inc’s Jason Calacanis, who not only offers Congdon a sweet deal, but calls her baby and says he’ll fight for her like a rabid dog.
- The official announcement comes from Rocketboom, which says that Congdon has quit to move to LA, and that the show will go on without her and be better than ever.
- Congdon accuses Baron of spreading misinformation, saying that Baron “insists on spinning things this way to shore up his assertion that I am ‘walking away’ from Rocketboom. I did not walk away. I did not accept Andrew’s idea of ‘partnership’.”
The events have created a storm in the blogosphere, because the Rocketboom soap opera is a painful, ugly, fascinating car wreck.At TechMeme, Congdon’s side of the story is the top story of the day, with dozens of blogs weighing in on the latest turn of events. Business Week is wondering about not only the future of Rocketboom, but what this means for the growing video podcasting industry. The Washington Post suggests that Congdon’s departure could spell doom for Rocketboom.