I’m not the only person to have noticed that Molly, the new presenter of Rocketboom daily web culture news show has gone AWOL.
Knowing that she returned to the UK (assumed that she initially return for a holiday or something), after a while the dread of the loss of another presenter crept in.
So, going straight to the horse’s mouth (so to speak), I dropped Andrew Baron a note and asked what was happening. Well, it turns out that Molly is back in the UK awaiting visa’s permits and I guess that all comes under the whole ‘Green Card’ fiasco, before she can return to NYC.

But here’s the thing; so it’s OK for Brits and Yanks to get together and travel around the world blowing other countries to hell and to die together – but when it comes to making an honest buck – NO!  It’s more a case of ‘Welcome to the world of BS, Red Tape and of course Bo**ocks’.

Sometimes, it makes you wonder why we bother…
However, even if the powers that be totally screw this up, there is always a work around, a third location or even a swap around every three months – where there’s a will and all that stuff.

Yes, after many shake-ups in recent months and Mr Baron almost having to go back to the drawing board, Rocketboom is back!
Now, in case you missed all thats been happening, here is what I know (which means it’s probably wrong);
The ever wonderful Joanne Colan (previous permanent host) left RB to develop her career and stomp new ground a few months ago. Sadly for us ‘punters’ this left a massive void.
In the mean time The Rocketboom tech crew carried on regardless and the powers that be brought in YouTube supreme Vlogger Caitlin Hill from TheHill88. Now I like Caitlin, but to me personally, and this bares no ill will at all, there was something about Caitlin’s persona that was just too different from Joanne’s.  Also, Joanne had not been gone very long at all, so this was a little like a culture shock.
Then Caitlin departed and the RB Tech crew soldiered on.
Around this time Ellie Rountree started doing more ‘field’ vids and I really think Ellie is awesome at what she does. Shame she doesn’t answer email or twitter – but hey, she probably gets too many, actually that’s wrong, we swapped comments about a potato once – hmmm odd.
So…. Then the big news – Andrew Baron announces a huge change for the future of Rocketboom; Rocketboom was throwing open the doors to all for the following – Not one but TWO new presenters needed! One for NYC and the other to be based in LA. The LA post is still to be filled but as of today, the Rocketboom NYC office is back up running and probably fully manned with awesome, multi-million hit YouTuber mememolly at the helm.! Oh and she blogs too right HERE
I think a Vancouver office would be much better, not too far from Seattle and it’s also the Sci-Fi capital of the world (a win win).
Actually, I wonder if they could get Caitlin to do the other office?

Never the less, here is the awesome Molly to introduce herself

Rocketboom has gone old-school YouTube, bringing Caitlin Hill on board to helm the web-based news program after Joanne Colan hosted her last episode on Friday. (Show creator Andrew Baron must be a sucker for women with accents.) Hill has been a YouTube sorta-celeb since 2006, posting videos there under the moniker TheHill88, where she amassed more than 70,000 subscribers and north of 4.4 million views.

Hill is also listed the chief creative officer of Hitviews, a production company that connects brands with web video stars.

The Colan-to-Hill host switch seems much more amicable than when original Rocketboom anchor Amanda Congdon left the show amidst a public fight with Baron over its ownership that eventually played out in the courts. Colan was brought in as a hurried replacement mid-2006.

In December ‘08, Rocketboom signed a deal with another YouTube celeb, Lisa Nova, to start up a “West Coast news desk.” That arrangement was short-lived, however. When asked about the Nova/Rocketboom relationship, Baron told us via email that: “It turned out, we didn’t really have the same objectives or approaches and mutually decided to keep up heading down our own separate paths. Rocketboom still has an office in L.A. and we plan to continue the work we set out to do there by expanding with a west coast anchor.”

As we wrote last week, the Sony-distributed (s sne) Rocketboom recently signed Intel (s intc) to sponsor its tech coverage. It’s also developed a neat in-house series called Know Your Meme.

Bebo to Launch More Originals; social network plans at least six more and will branch out from drama into entertainment, reality and comedy content. (The Hollywood Reporter)

TV Guide to Give Away Downloads of 30 Rock; issues of the magazine will feature a unique download code allowing users to access an episode of the show before it airs. (MediaWeek)

Stream Content to Your PC with DirecTV; subscribers to the satellite service will soon be able to stream recorded shows to PCs inside the home. (Zatz Not Funny)

Princess of Nebraska Debuts on YouTube Today; feature film from Wayne Wang to debut for free on the video-sharing site. (CNN)(See our previous coverage.)

SAG Talks Are Not Going Well; News Corp’s Peter Chernin says actors union believes deals reached with other unions are not good enough. (TVWeek)

FCC Wants to Fine Time Warner Cable, Cox; commission cries foul over the companies moving some broadcast channels to switched digital video, making them inaccessible to third-party devices like TiVo. (Multichannel News)

Fred Baron Receives Experimental Drug; father of Rocketboom’s Andrew Baron gets access to medicine. (Dembot)

Brightcove Launches New Version of Its Video Platform; Brightcove 3 features new workflow, player framework, media APIs and delivery functionality. (Brightcove)

Worldwide Biggies Shorts Going to Spike TV; comedic web series MoCap, LLC will get six episodes on the cable network starting in January.

New Content Distribution Partnerships; Hulu to feature Sesame Street clips (Hulu Blog); Dailymotion partners with Howcast (release); Wizzard to distribute WatchMojo content (release); Strike TV signs distribution deals with YouTube and Joost. (emailed release)

New Law Consolidates Federal Copyright Enforcement; the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act establishes a cabinet post appointed by the president. (CNET)

Warner Bros. Content Coming to DivX; studio enters into agreement that allows Warner titles to be sold in the format. (release)

Universal Music Group to Create Its Own Video Site; rather than posting to YouTube, record label will build its own. (CNET)

Ad Agencies Plan to Increase Viral Video Spending; new survey from viral seeding firm Feed Company says 70 percent of ad agencies and media buyers will boost budgets for the marketing tactic. (release)

Andrew Baron Pleads With Pharma Company CEO; Rocketboom founder takes to the web in an attempt to get access to an experimental treatment that could save his father’s life, also enlists the help of Lance Armstrong and Bill Clinton. (Dembot)

Wow, once again for interesting stories about sex, lies, and videotape you need look no further than your computer screen.   Here’s the interesting scoop that is leading to some nastiness in the chattering nonsense of my favorite technology blogOsphere:

After noting on Twitter a nasty debate about “self made” vs “sugar daddied” between online content guys Jason Calacanis and Andrew Baron this popped up:

ValleyWag reports:
The Rocketboom episode neatly explains why the world of online video so resembles film school, a parent-funded enterprise of self-indulgent auteurs with macroambitions viewed by microaudiences (including yours truly). Sony’s deal doesn’t affirm the potential of online video as a means of creative expression; it simply tells us that the rich, despite themselves, can’t help getting richer.

Rocketboom was the early tech news show hosted by Amanda Congdon.   Not clear to me how much this hurt the show, but the buzz died way down until Rocketboom was bought by a big player recently.

But it gets more fun/sad/tragic/interesting.    Baron’s father, a prominent Texas attorney, is a friend and supporter of John Edwards and some rumors suggest he may have played a role in what appear to be possible hush money payments or at least hush up activities surrounding John Edwards affair with a …. campaign video producer.

So, do all roads lead to low monetizing but highly subsidized online video?   Stay tuned for the next video episode – at least as long as we can find some politicians or parents to pay for it.

The job title of Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom John Edwards finally admitted to having an affair, keeps changing, from videographer to actress to former yoga instructor to documentary filmmaker. What do you call someone who was paid at least $100,000 to create a web series about the candidate, “untucked”? Besides, of course, “John Edwards’ mistress.”

In December 2006, John Edwards kicked off his presidential campaign by inviting a large group of videobloggers with him to New Orleans, where he announced his candidacy. Those on the trip got an intimate look at the campaign behind the scenes — a look that, a year and a half later, has led to the end of Edwards’ political career.

Hunter wasn’t technically an outside videoblogger — she was working for the campaign — and the videos she created for the Edwards campaign site are no longer available there. However, because nothing ever really goes away on the Internet, the episodes have since popped up on YouTube.

The first episode, entitled Plane Truths is actually pretty compelling stuff, cross-cutting between Edwards showing off his rough notes for the night’s speech and the actual speech. Edwards then goofs off a little, talking about how he has no idea what cool is, before the video segues into a discussion of why he’s glad to have included videobloggers in his campaign. In his words: “I think it helps that you guys are filming all the time, instead of just when I’m speaking in front of a big crowd speaking. That’s why this, I absolutely believe, has the potential to change how we do this, in a very good way.”

For Edwards, though, the December 2006 trip has backfired on a Gary Hart-esque scale. When NewTeeVee originally covered the story of Edwards’ YouTube candidacy, the concern at the time was that by keeping online journalists close to the campaign’s bosom, their objectivity would be compromised.

But what’s happened instead is that by giving videobloggers unparalleled access to the campaign, they were able to observe and record everything they saw — and speak somewhat candidly about it. From Rocketboom correspondent Chuck Olson’s blog entry describing his encounter with Hunter:

She was very outgoing, maybe even flirtatious, but really nice. I asked how she got the gig filming webisodes, and she said she met him in a bar and they clicked, and she proposed some online documentary showing his authenticity…

Unfortunately, I’ve always held a small seed of suspicion that the affair rumors could be true from my short experience with the campaign…

Olson’s blog post was accompanied by a video he shot while on the plane — until the Associated Press bought the footage from him. Former PodTech correspondent Robert Scoble was also there — and his photos, viewable on Flickr, are available for purchase.

Hunter has kept quiet about the affair, but Web Scout’s fantastic analysis of her videos notes several instances when the flirtation between her and Edwards was clearly apparent — after the fact, her online video work is still helping to paint the full picture.

Since the story broke in full, Hunter has fled the spotlight for Santa Barbara, Calif., a move that was paid for by Fred Baron, finance chair of John Edwards’ campaign, a major fundraiser for the Democratic party, and the father of Rocketboom’s Andrew Baron, who was also a part of the December 2006 New Orleans trip. Rocketboom has conducted multiple interviews with the candidate, and had a consulting gig on the campaign. But even these ties to the campaign haven’t kept Olson from reporting on what he saw.

It’s one small world, and if there’s anything to learn, it’s this: Edwards was right. The freedom with which we now share information is changing the way politics in this country work, and for the better — because it demands better of our politicians. Unfortunately, what Edwards found out was that if your actions can’t stand up to that kind of scrutiny, giving online video a front-row seat isn’t the smartest move.

Sure, it’s only been four years, but 2004 still feels like a lifetime ago in the new media world. And no one knows this better than Rocketboom producer Andrew Baron. A grizzled veteran of the industry, Baron successfully created one of the web’s perennial daily podcasts before anyone really knew what podcasting could be. We talked with him about the reasons for Rocketboom’s lack of expansion, Amanda Congdon’s Rocketboom lawsuit, plans for the next Rocketboom endeavor, larger industry problems with networks and monetization, and the toll of daily production. An edited transcript of our conversation follows.

NewTeeVee: Rocketboom has been running daily for over three-and-a-half years now. Who, at this point, do you feel is your audience?

Baron: People who are the first to use aggregators, new technology. We also have a regular audience of people who aren’t plugged into the Web 2.0 world the way that we are, but they come to Rocketboom to get a little taste of Internet culture. We still don’t have a lot of mainstream audience. Probably our biggest mainstream audience comes through TiVo — people who may not even surf the web, but might discover us through that.

NewTeeVee: Do you think there’s been any major shift in audience over the past few years?

Baron: It’s grown larger; it’s grown more international. I think we have a more mature audience now. When people were first discovering Rocketboom, there was a lot of audience that seemed to be attracted to the show for reasons that weren’t really why we wanted them to be attracted to the show. You’ve got a lot of people online who are really obnoxious and say a lot of horrible things — overtly sexual or whatever. They’re important in a way, but they were coming to look at the wrong things. And we’ve toned that aspect down a lot.

NewTeeVee: What’s your current plan for future Rocketboom endeavors?

Baron: The plan is to grow the Rocketboom brand. But we’re still so small.

NewTeeVee: Yeah, despite having been around for four years, Rocketboom hasn’t expanded much. Is there a reason for the lack of growth?

Baron: When Amanda Congdon left, she usurped the show and the business I had in place for ABC, HBO and the Amanda Across America projects. While that was a setback, I had no interest in suing her. I tried to move on. However, she was unwilling to let go and so we went to court. Eventually, after a great deal of time and money was wasted, Amanda lost the case — she appealed and then lost the appeal as well. But [the suit] prohibited us from seeking investment or other partnerships, so all of my work has been to preserve our position in the space. I think we have done well considering the circumstances.

Note: We have not yet found record of a lawsuit in which Congdon is named as a primary plaintiff, but documents from 2007 indicate that she filed motion in a New York court to be recognized as co-owner of Rocketboom and was denied. NewTeeVee will continue to investigate this matter.

When I look around at some of the other networks — like Revision3 or Next New Networks or PodTech, which recently fell apart — they all have something in common with us: They all started out with a hit show, and they tried to create a network out of it. If I’d had the resources to build out those other shows, that would have happened to me, too. But looking back I’m glad it never did, because I think they’re all going about it the wrong way.

NewTeeVee: What do you feel those networks are doing wrong?

Baron: The main thing is that they’re not efficient at leveraging the resources they have in an economical way. If you’ve got a small network, you only have a few shows: one about cars, another about building houses, another one about news. And while it’s true that yes, you’re reaching several kinds of audiences, with those kind of audiences…

NewTeeVee: There’s no crossover?

Baron: Exactly. So you have all these different shows and you’re building them up and creating a new set of resources for each show, and you’re not able to leverage the audience from the other shows. So you end up stretching yourself really thin. I think we’ve seen a lot of problems come from that and I think we’ll see a lot more.

NewTeeVee: Looking back, how much has the shift in hosts changed the show?

Baron: I would say that the main difference is that when we were first getting the format going, we did a lot more to press buttons and explore boundaries. But the more that time has gone on, the more we’ve been able to focus on the content itself.

The transition from Amanda [Congdon] to Joanne happened at a perfect time. Originally, the reason people liked Rocketboom was because it was something new: People were not used to video online. Now that’s changed — now it’s about what you can really do with this. And we’ve been able to hold onto our position by focusing on content. Joanne has really helped the company with that transition, because of her experience, her education — she’s a really fantastic human being with a lot of integrity.

NewTeeVee: Do you have an official comment on Amanda’s new show?

Baron: I’m going to stick with “no comment.” But you can say that I said “no comment.”

NewTeeVee: “No comment” is kind of a comment, in its way.

Baron: Yeah, it is a comment.

NewTeeVee: What is the current Rocketboom audience?

Baron: We recently decided not to talk about that, because it is so controversial. But what I can say is that from February or March of 2007 to 2008, Rocketboom was ranked one of the fastest-growing video startups by Compete, based on their own public data.

NewTeeVee: After four years, do you still consider yourself a startup?

Baron: Yeah. I do. We’re still in startup mode.

NewTeeVee: But when do you stop being a startup?

Baron: That’s a good question, because I don’t know what the condition of a startup is. We have not been acquired by anybody and we have not taken any investment by capitalists or anybody. We’re just kind of on our own right now.

When Rocketboom started, there was no market, and I knew we weren’t going to come up with any money for a while. So I just said, “Let’s just do this and give it away for free and let people redistribute it and try and get really popular.” I set a benchmark of 50,000 per day, so when we hit that I knew, “Oh, there’s a market value here. How do we extract it? ” But when I stopped to look, there was still no market at all. Even now, several years later, YouTube is saying that they haven’t cracked this nut yet. Blip.tv is a recent partner we have for ad sales, and they have not cracked the nut yet. We gave Federated Media a chance, and they couldn’t do it.

NewTeeVee: What can you tell me about the upcoming show featuring Ellie [Rountree, a Rocketboom producer]?

Baron: The focus is on Internet culture. We’re really excited about it, because when we release it, our strategy for how we’re growing will be a lot more apparent. This show is a lot more innovative — it’s a step in a new direction, working in context with Rocketboom and everything else, but taking it a step further.

NewTeeVee: In the interactive direction?

Baron: Yeah, in the interactive direction. We’re not going to have tickers and flashing lights all over the place; we’re just going to make the show more efficient and more fun at the same time. Rocketboom audiences initially assumed the brand was the personality, but over the past few years they’ve seen that the brand is the show itself. The personality is really important to it, though, and Ellie’s got a great personality. So I think it’s going to be one of the stronger points of this one.

NewTeeVee: Is it going to be daily?

Baron: No, not at first. It could turn into that eventually, though.

NewTeeVee: How has doing a daily show changed your life?

Baron: You know when they take a picture of a president from before his election and afterwards, and you can’t believe how much someone can age over that time period? The stress of trying to meet deadlines and make the show as good as possible — that kind of stress definitely has an impact. But last night I got about four or five hours of sleep, and while I could have gotten more sleep, this is still so exciting and interesting that I don’t even notice that I’m not sleeping or that I’m stressed out or that I’m tired. It’s definitely taken a toll on me physically. But I’ll catch up on sleep when I retire.

Aunque parezca incréible es una noticia verídica, y es que Andrew Baron, fundador de RocketBoom, se ha decidido a subaster su cuenta Twitter con 1.555 followers incluídos. En este momento la puja en eBay ya ha mas de 30 personas que han pujado y el valor por el momento se encuentra en 1.125$ Desde luego ser un friky de Twitter de semejante tamaño se cotiza.

NOTA: Nuhbe, y luego me dices friky…, ojalá fuera como este Gracias a Fayerwayer

Et af de nyere sociale tiltag på nettet er Twitter. Et sted hvor man på max 140 tegn kontinuerligt kan give svar på spørgsmålet “What are you doing?” døgnet rundt.

Twitter har en finesse der gør, at man kan følge andres tweets (som de små beskeder kaldes) og enkelte af de mere interessante personligheder har flere tusinde, der følger ens tweets. Eksempelvis har kendte bloggere som Dave Winer og Robert Scoble henholdsvis 7.531 og 18.887 “followers”.

Det tager naturligvis tid at opbygge så mange “followers”, og nu er der så en, der har taget skridtet fuldt ud og sat sin Twitter-konto til salg på Ebay. Det er stifteren af Rocketboom Andrew Baron der har sat salgsskiltet op på sin Twitter-konto.

I skrivende stund er højeste bud $ 465 for hans 1.449 followers (jeg er forresten en af dem )

Du kan følge auktionen på Ebay her.

Jeg fik tippet om auktionen hos Michael Arrington og hans blog TechCrunch har yderligere baggrundsinformationer om hvorfor Andrew Baron sælger hans Twitter konto.

Spændende at se hvad der sker. Hvis man læser kommentarene på TechCrunch kan man se at nogle byder for at kunne lukke kontoen så andre ikke bruger den til at spamme de mange “followers”.

I like Anil de Mello.

He has vision.

While most of the internet was focusing on building blog networks Anil decided to build a video network.

His MoBuzz daily video show is in English and Spanish (with rumors of another on the way.) It’s available in every form imaginable (even psp!) everyday.

How successful has Anil been?

click image for full size

The chart above compares the traffic for the past 3 months (via Alexa with MoBuzz in blue) with the gold standard Rocketboom (red on chart). Not bad.

But Anil has a problem.

A problem big enough to threaten the entire MoBuzz brand.

It’s also one Andrew Baron, the producer of Rocketboom, has faced before.

On Friday, June 15th of this year, Karina Stenquist left MoBuzz to “read books” (among other things.)

Karina was the face for the English version of the show.

Just like Amanda Congdon represented the brand for Rocketboom, Karina was the brand for MoBuzz.

She helped create what is now the ubiquitous online video chick. Cute. Geeky. Smart. Funny.

Just like the fans took to Amanda, the MoBuzz crowd took to Karina.

But unlike the way Andrew was able to keep Rocketboom plugging along, Anil’s english version of MoBuzz went into a tailspin.

His new host, which was introduced on Karina’s last broadcast, didn’t jell with viewers.

She left.

That left the show without a host.

Which meant no new shows.

A quick look at the comments gives the a taste of the frustration level among viewers. There hasn’t been a new show in almost two weeks and the viewers are getting restless.

One of the problems, of course, is that the the MoBuzz shows are shot in Madrid, Spain. It’s hard enough finding cute, smart, funny, tech savvy hosts in the US.

Trying to find english speaking ones in Madrid is even harder.

Anil pointed out as much in an email response to me in regards to the future of his network.

Anil also told me that the new host will debut on Monday. Unfortunately, he told his audience the same thing two weeks ago.

The web buzz is that he does have a new host this time and her name is Osiris.

Hopefully she can save the English version of the promising network.

Despite all the skills this new media age is destroying, Talent Management is not one of them.

I heard Andrew Baron of Rocketboom speak at SXSW a few weeks back. He was discussing charging subscriptions for Rocketboom viewers. I just saw an article in which he discussed that option more in detail. Although Rocketboom gets 200,000 downloads per day advertisers aren’t prepared to put advertising dollars into reaching such a small audience and would rather putting it towards messaging that will reach millions. I certainly understand Andrew’s quandry, after all, he needs to put gas in his car right?

What is becomming obvious is that advertisers don’t get the new model yet. They are still convinced that creating generic messaging that speaks to a wide range of consumers and desemminating that messaging to millions in one hit. That model is losing relevance every day. Consumers want to be targeted n an individual basis, or whatever comes close. What Rocketboom has going for it is that it’s viewers are a fairly tight target audience. The advantage advertisers would have is while they are speaking to a smaller crowd, that crowd is more specific than what they’d get with a tv spot. Visitors to Rocketboom also consider themselves to be members of an elite group that view Rocketboom content. Any advertising aimed at them will surely feel personal. If done right. By really understanding Rocketboom’s crowd, an advertiser has the ability to talk directly to a niche group on their level, in their language.

It makes me think of the sci fi commercials that Gillette put out on Sci Fi Channel years ago. Those commercials spoke to a niche audience in their language (Nanu, Nanu). While it may not have given Gillette the bang for their buck that they expected, the demographic has changed.

Consumers are sick of advertising clogging up their lives. They only want relevant advertising, for products or services that might interest them and they want advertisers to speak to them personally. This puts Rocketboom in the unique position of having a distinct audience that can be targeted with laser sharp messaging.

Andrew sat behind me on the flight back to Newark from SXSW. I wanted to tell him my thoughts on his conundrum… but I figured he’d rather read it in a blog.

I had a chance to interview JOE KLEIN the announcer and co-producer of “The Vloggies” last night’s smash hit event in San Francisco!

The Vloggies brought down the house, while bringing all those in attendance to their feet as the ceremony drew to a close.

I just got off an hour long Skype call with my good friend Podcast Voice Guy, Joe Klein who had just returned from a long day of rehearsing and staging the show and then partying into the small hours of the morning in celebration of the overwhelming success of the event.

Joe told me that the reaction to the ceremony was – to use his words “an army of thumbs up!” He went on to say that “everyone he encountered after the show was still buzzing and bathing in its warm afterglow and riding along with him on one big giant cloud nine!”

Joe tells me that PodTech CEO JOHN FURRIER was also basking and beaming in the spotlight following the standing ovations and cheers from the crowd as the show reached its climax. The hugs and high-fives that immediately followed the ceremony continued on at the party afterward.

Joe went on to say that Furrier interviewed him at a special video booth at the ceremony’s after party to record statements from all the Vloggy winners that didn’t have a chance to come up on stage. “I’d like you to meet the man behind the scenes, the man behind the curtain, at the Vloggies. This is the Wizard of Oz that made it all happen”was how John started the interview.

“Frankly, to hear the head of the company behind the Vloggies describe me in this way came as quite a surprise and kind of blew my mind”, Joe added.

When Joe and I spoke, he wasn’t even aware that mega blogger/vlogger ROBERT SCOBLE had already blogged his own personal kudos to Joe for rocking the Vloggies in a blog post released just hours ago. Scoble said:

“Joe Klein announced the Vloggies tonight and did an awesome job. He also did it for free. Which I greatly appreciate. He does this stuff professionally. He’s an accomplished voice over guy.“

Other notables Joe encountered after the ceremony had similar raves, including Steve Gillmor who repeatedly told Joe “You did a terrific job!” Diggnation star KEVIN ROSE, one of the celebrity presenters (and winner of the People’s Choice Vloggy for Favorite Tech Vlog) really “dugg” the show himself telling Joe he had a total blast.

I asked my exhausted friend how he personally felt the show went down.

“Of course the ceremony had its glitches. Every live event like this one does. We had a couple of major stumbles early on, and it got a little scary there for a moment but, like the actor who trips and stumbles onto the stage in his opening scene, we pulled it together, recovered from our minor injuries and, rose to the occasion. It seemed almost like we had angels on our shoulders from that point forward. The show just kept getting better and better. By the last award, people were literally on their feet cheering, and those of us running the show were, understandably releived.”

Joe promised there will be more stories in the days and weeks to come and also agreed to provide me some exclusive “behind the scenes” photos of the show that you’ll see here first!!

As a close personal friend of Joe’s, I couldn’t be more thrilled for him and appreciate that he took the time to speak to me before getting some badly needed rest!

Finally to supporters of me and my endeavors, although I am a bit disappointed that my video “Rock and Roll Heaven” didn’t win a Vloggy, it was still a thrill to be part of this historic competition. My heartfelt congratulations go out to the winners to all the Judges Picks and People’s Choice Vloggy recipients.

Beautiful photos courtesy of Scott Beale of Laughing Squid.

At the risk of sounding like a ruthless self-promoter, I’m very excited to let everyone know that the music video of Rock and Roll Heaven (above) that I produced late this last summer is in the running for three Vloggie Awards! In case you are unaware of what the Vloggies are, they’re the first ever awards for online videos, video casts and of course video blogs.

There are 35 categories in the Vloggies. With everything from “Funniest Video” to “Best Cooking Vlog” to “Best Green Vlog.” Of Course there are dozens of categories that you would expect to find; such as “Best Tech Vlog”, “Best News Vlog” and of course “Best Female Vlogger, Male Vlogger” and “Best Vlog”. My video is up for awards in the categories of: “Best Editing in a Video”, “Best Experimental Video”, and “Best Original Music.”

There will be two awards in each category, one selected by a panel of judges, and the “People’s Choice” voted for by the public, online. VOTING IS NOW OPEN, and needless to say, I would really appreciate your vote in any or all of the three categories I mentioned above. By the way, you can vote as often as you like! You might want to hurry because voting closes on Friday, October 27^th.

Vote for all your favourites here: http://vloggiessf.com/vote

The awards will be announced Saturday, November 4^th. The ceremony will begin at approximately 7:30 PM. The event is being held at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco, the same venue where they had VloggerCon 2006. The awards are being hosted by Irina Slutsky, who many of you may know as the blonde reporter on Geek Entertainment Television. Her Co-host is Daniel McVicar, an actor from the soap opera, “The Bold and Beautiful” and the operator of his own video blog, “The McVlog.” McVicar has just launched a cool new website that is both a new video blog and social network called “The Late Night Mash.” As of this writing a few of the more notable celebrities expected to present are: Andrew Baron and Joanne Colan of RocketBoom, Kent and Doug from Ask a Ninja.com, and Kevin Rose of Diggnation. The final list of presenters is about to be released on the Vloggies website and Blog. The Vloggies are being produced by the new parent company of Geek Entertainment.TV, PodTech, so you can expect to see Podtech CEO John Furrier and mega-blogger/vlogger Robert Scoble at the event!

Now if that isn’t enough, my good friend, mentor and trusted associate, Podcast Voice Guy, Joe Klein (pictured on left), is going to be the announcer at the Vloggies! Joe tells me that he’s going to be doing some very “off the wall” and unexpected stuff as the show’s announcer. He is also working closely with the producers of the event, and says that this is going to be one incredible evening! (BTW, Joe and I may have an interesting announcment to make in the very near future. Stay tuned!)

As regular readers know, I live in the UK and will, unfortunately, not be able to attend the event. So the question arises, who will accept the Vloggy on my behalf if I win…??? (Hmm…)

By the way a special thanks to Artie Wayne of Artie Wayne on the Web for sending me the demo of the updated song by Alan O’Day and Jonny Stevenson which inspired me to produce the video.

Admit it.

The new Rocketboom 2.0 (beta) is just as clever as the old Rocketboom.

Congrats Andrew.

And Joanne Colan (former MTV Europe VJ) does a great job as interim host. It was a risky move to jump into the RB mess but it may end up being a very wise one.

So after a shaky start it seems that Rocketboom will thrive.

Your move Amanda.

Amanda Congdon will be on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country tonight. The show airs at 9pm ET. According to Nick, Amanda is currently talking to the folks from babe-hosted vlog 88slide about doing a show that will be shown as an interstitial on MTV.

Yes, someday soon I plan to have something to talk about besides Amanda Congdon.

Update: The new Rocketboom (with host Joanne Colan ) was scheduled to launch today, but Andrew Baron just put a note up on Rocketboom.com stating that it’s been postponed one day. Hopefully this doesn’t get pushed back more than one day; Andrew has a huge piece of momentum coming in to today’s show and moving it too many times will wreck consumer (and advertiser) faith in the show.

The Huffington Post reports that Andrew Baron has tapped former MTV Europe VJay Joanne Colan to become the new anchor of Rocketboom, which will return July 10. Having never seen Joanne in action nor even really heard of her until today, I cannot comment on what she brings to the table. Needless to say, if she’s a former MTV VJay, then she’s probably pretty talented.

What I’m really waiting for is to find out whether or not Amanda Congdon has accepted Jason Calacanis’ offer.

First learned about Rocketboom through This Week in Tech’s TWiTcast. In that episode, Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron was (in)famously involved in a rather heated exchange with Weblogs, Inc. CEO Jason McCabe Calacanis in which Baron unveiled “plans for world domination” (there was a comparison to Rupert Murdoch).
As it turns out, Baron and Rocketboom partner Amanda Congdon are splitting.
What seems to fascinate people so much about the Rocketboom split is the drama. A bit like “celebrity gossip for the geek crowd.” Learned about the split through CNET’s BuzzOutLoud podcast where they made a passing reference to the notion that the Congdon-Baron duo might have been more than a simple business partnership.
Congdon posted on her own blog both a video about the split and a commented email exchange with Baron. The same Calacanis who was having that exchange with Baron on TWiT has blogged about the Rocketboom split (and followed up with another entry teasing Baron).

Already, some are thinking about TikiBarTV’s LaLa as a replacement for Congdon.

Some, like the BuzzOutLoud cast, are trying to think about the implications for what Tim O’Reilly calls “Web 2.0.” Can vlogging, vidcasting, and other forms of content distribution still work? How is it that just a few individuals in the United States can have such a big impact on such a broad phenomenon?
In a way, the whole situation might generate a lot of “buzz” for Rocketboom which already had a fairly big audience. So this “geek buzz” might make vlogging more similar to television in the United States. Some (especially in the U.S., one might guess) could see the transformation as a way for vlogging to become a viable business model while others (possibly outside of the U.S. “mediascape”) might deplore the transformation of free, open, and community-oriented models of content distribution into generic “mass media.”

On the other hand, this might be a way for the aforementioned “geek crowd” to assess itself as an important part of U.S. popular culture.

Ah, well…

Yesterday’s news that Amanda Congdon has left the popular videoblog Rocketboom took the internet (or at least the blogosphere) by storm. Amanda ended up responding last night to Andrew Baron’s claims that she just wanted to move to Los Angeles as soon as possible to pursue Hollywood stardom and left Rocketboom because they wouldn’t cave in to her “demands” that the show be moved to LA immediately. She printed a series of emails between she and Andrew, and they are enlightening, to say the least.

I am disheartened by Andrew Baron’s decision to spread misinformation. He knows I cannot move to LA without a job…but 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”. It’s not true. I’m presently living with my parents in Connecticut until I can get back on my feet.

Andrew, let me give you a small piece of advice. Losing Amanda is a big deal. Nobody, including you, can deny that. She was the lifeblood of the show and she’s the reason people watched. You’re a moron for letting it get to this point in the first place, and I’m not sure why you did. Why was it such a big deal for you to have complete creative control? Nobody is denying that you have a part in Rocketboom, a huge part, and Amanda even pointed out that you’re an excellent producer. Did you feel like you needed your name plastered all over the show so everyone would know who was really in charge?

So you lost Amanda. That’s bad enough. But for you to come out and flat-out lie to everyone, telling us that you had no idea that any of this was happening? That’s not a good way to handle things, Andrew. You should have told the truth and let the chips fall where they may instead of acting like you’re completely innocent in this whole thing. At this point, you have some serious ’splaining to do, and I’m pretty sure you just damaged any chances you might have had in making Rocketboom succeed without Amanda.

And Dave Winer, are these the emails you talked about seeing yesterday? Because it sure doesn’t seem to me as if Amanda was holding Andrew up for money or trying to buy the show from him. It looks, at least to these eyes, like Amanda wanted something everyone wants: a stake in what they do, a sense of ownership. Letting her help produce and write the show aren’t exactly what I’d call crazy demands. Would you?

Amanda, please accept Jason’s offer. He’ll treat you right, you’ll have complete creative control, you’ll have the Time Warner might behind you, and we’ll still be able to watch you on a daily basis.

Heather Green at Business Week has more on the story. 

The Rocketboom fiasco is some heady stuff.

What’s cooler than watching folks fight in internet time?

But the story is an old one.

Producer vs. Talent is one of the oldest battles in media.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (some of the most successful music producers in history) used to be a part of the Prince controlled band called The Time. They were fired because they wanted to take advantage of producing opportunities.

It worked out well for them.

But there are more stories of artists who leave successful series and end up in glory days oblivion.

Remember the guy who quit ER after Clooney? Me either.

But here’s the deal.

Few things are as intoxicating as fame.

It’s why people make faces behind the news reporters on TV.

It’s why people wait in line for days to get a shot at American Idol.

Once you have a taste, the chance to play on a bigger stage is as intoxicating as a chartreuse cocktail on ice. Heady stuff.

And the smart folks will tell you timing is everything in the fame business.

Amanda had to make a move.

Alexa ratings show the program had probably peaked.

This is short attention span theatre.

We might like you but we don’t notice you for long.

Unless she gets to produce, Amanda has sucked everything she could out of RB.

And MTV has taught us that VJs are replaceable.

This is really the best for everyone involved.

Rocketboom gets to reinvent itself.

Amanda gets to reinvent herself.

And most importantly to those in the fame business

we’ll be watching both.

(if you want to know some inside info without the hyperbole check out Chuck’s site)