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Controversy creates cash: How not to launch a video blog
Written by Allen Stern - December 26, 2006
For part I of the Controversy creates cash series, I have decided to look at how not to launch a video blog. On December 13, 2006, Amanda Congdon (she's on my 23 people I'd like to meet) launched her video tv show for ABC News. From what I can tell, she attempted to bring over the former Rocketboom crowd to ABC News. Personally I am not sure that it is easy to do that when you go to the big stage. The controversy also began on that date for her.
Side note, she mentions that we should send in images for her to use as her backdrop on episode #2, but there was none. And then we have the blogosphere. The guys at RottedBrain claim that she "ripped off" or used their theme for her blog. I think Loren Feldman's (1938 Media) clip is a good overview for other comments in the blogosphere on the first ABC News post (naturally there were some positive reviews, but we are looking for controversy in this article):
View the video (I just refuse to embed him in bed! :)
Clearly Amanda has received lots of traffic to her shows (possibly based on the controversy) and Technorati lists 175 new links to her main ABC News page (http://abcnews.go.com/Amanda/).
I would have tried to clear up the issues with RocketBoom before launching either of her video shows. This way the shows could be launched sans controversy. It will be interesting to watch where both Amanda and Andrew go from here and how it affects the videoblogging scene as a whole.
As Amanda is one of the first to hit the big time, if she fails, do all video bloggers take a major hit? If she succeeds, do all video bloggers get a positive hit? Maybe we should all be working to make sure she succeeds so we all have a better path to success? If she fails, is NBC/CBS/CNN more likely not to do a video blog in the near future?
Either way, I am glad that the RocketBoom piece is worked out and both can move forward with their ventures. I wish both Amanda and Andrew much success in their ventures!
ABC News video show feedback
On ABC News feedback page, her first show had 177 comments. Since I am Jewish and already ate my traditional chinese food, I decided to look at some metrics related to the comments posted on the site. Taking away the technical comments (rss feed, player issues, etc.), I get 59% negative feedback, 29% positive feedback and 11% "looks" feedback (+-1%). Now let's look at week 2 feedback. This week the "looks" feedback dropped dramatically, while the negative feedback picked up a bit. Same as week 1 I removed the technical comments and ended up with 64% negative feedback, 31% positive feedback and 4% "looks" feedback. The majority of the newest feedback was negative. Twenty-four total feedback items submitted on 12/23-12/24, and 20 of them are negative, the other 4 are split between neutral and positive. More females (assuming they entered their real names) than males posted negative feedback.Side note, she mentions that we should send in images for her to use as her backdrop on episode #2, but there was none. And then we have the blogosphere. The guys at RottedBrain claim that she "ripped off" or used their theme for her blog. I think Loren Feldman's (1938 Media) clip is a good overview for other comments in the blogosphere on the first ABC News post (naturally there were some positive reviews, but we are looking for controversy in this article):
View the video (I just refuse to embed him in bed! :)
Clearly Amanda has received lots of traffic to her shows (possibly based on the controversy) and Technorati lists 175 new links to her main ABC News page (http://abcnews.go.com/Amanda/).
Amanda vs. Andrew
I think the bigger controversy is something that I guess started earlier this year between Amanda and Andrew over Amanda leaving Rocketboom. While Andrew states that as of December 22, he is now the 100% owner, you have to wonder how the controversy hurt both of them. Valleywag has a great overview of the issue between the two with a timeline and everything. You can also read all of the threads on the Yahoo! videoblogging forum. It is unfortunate that two people who seemed to have such positive feedback during their RocketBoom era, would open up cans of woopass on either other in such a public forum. Did this controversy hurt or help either of them? I actually think it hurt because it may have showed juvenile characteristics on both parts.New Video show
The last piece is to discuss her new video show, "Starring Amanda Congdon". So far I have not found much controversy (which is a good thing). Side note, she mentions hating JavaScript, yet uses it on SAC. Podcast NYC has some comments along with Loren's video.Final Summary
It would be interesting to speak with someone from ABC News or Dove to get their reaction from the user generated comments and the controversy. It is unfortunate that along with what could be a great positive for video bloggers across the world comes so much negative controversy.I would have tried to clear up the issues with RocketBoom before launching either of her video shows. This way the shows could be launched sans controversy. It will be interesting to watch where both Amanda and Andrew go from here and how it affects the videoblogging scene as a whole.
As Amanda is one of the first to hit the big time, if she fails, do all video bloggers take a major hit? If she succeeds, do all video bloggers get a positive hit? Maybe we should all be working to make sure she succeeds so we all have a better path to success? If she fails, is NBC/CBS/CNN more likely not to do a video blog in the near future?
Either way, I am glad that the RocketBoom piece is worked out and both can move forward with their ventures. I wish both Amanda and Andrew much success in their ventures!
COMMENTS - Add New Comment
Great post/perspective. I noticed that Amanda filters comments on both sites. So it's likely she didn't publish many of the negitive comments, though it's likely she published all of the positive ones.
However, I don't think this will matter for other videobloggers. What matters is talent.
So going to ABC is the big time? I thought the whole point of video blogging and YouTube, etc., was that the networks were old news, creating content that's old hat.
The big time these days is getting an astronomical amount of hits on your site or being able to influence an election by merely posting a video.
If we fall into the state of mind that making big money via ABC is a sign of success, then the whole experiment has failed.