amanda congdon

Former Rocketboom star Amanda Congdon launched her latest online video show, "Sometimes Daily" last week. I can't figure out what the show is about other than it seems to focus a lot on Hillary Clinton. There appears to be a small cast of 4-5 people including Congdon's business partner.

Today she is announcing a distribution deal with NY-based Media Rights Capital. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but Dan Goodman, President of Digital Media for MRC said, "Our focus for Sometimes Daily will be taking a great proven digital talent like Amanda and offering MRC’s support and infrastructure to unleash her creatively to do what she does best."

Here's what's really funny - Congdon bashed to all heck ABC when they didn't offer embeds, comments, etc. on her news show on ABCNews, but on Sometimes Daily, there's only a .mov file - no embed option. I just can't see this show lasting, especially if they need to sign on a sponsor for ad revenue. Congdon does have a loyal fan base so perhaps that will help the show to grow. Check out our notes from Congdon at SXSW last year.

TVNewser is reporting that Amanda Congdon and ABC News have ended their relationship. They list the official memo from ABC News:

"It's been a great year with Amanda — a great experiment for both of us. We thank her for her many contributions and know that she's about to embark on new endeavors and expect there will be times in the future that we can again work together."

Duncan seems to believe this means that online personalities can't make the jump to mainstream. I disagree with this conclusion. Not sure how one videoblogger leaving a TV channel makes for a complete panic. If she joins a new network tomorrow, would he then believe that online personalities make the jump?

I have written about Amanda several times including calling her show a "digrace to women" after the first episode. But Amanda is an excellent marketer. She has been talking about a series for HBO and I assume leaving ABC will give her more time to work on this. She has also done work for Dupont and American Express and I expect her to work more in the "ad" space moving forward. She seems to enjoy that work more from what I can tell.

I also believe that ABC wasn't ready for a videoblogger. Amanda's fans bitched and moaned about no commenting, feeds, and other blog-oriented technologies. ABC seemed to always be in catch-up mode. Amanda was constantly apologizing in the beginning for ABC's lack of current technology.

I am certain we will see Amanda back online in some video mode soon, probably back in the RocketBoom style. Hey, maybe she can be the video blogger for CenterNetworks! :)

Tonight on CNBC, Donny "I like to hold my glasses to look smart" Deutsch had "Internet Nobodies to Instant Celebs" on. He tries to come across as someone who really understands the Internet. No idea if it's for real or just a show.

I am guessing this will be on CNBC International or on YouTube at some point. (actually if you are on the west coast it's on at 10pm I understand and 12am on the east coast)

The guests on the show included:

• The two mentos guys - $35k in revenue from the videos so far
• Lisa Donovan - "used YouTube to become a star" (she had the longest segment by far)
• Liam Sullivan - "created comedy shows on YouTube and now gets paid by iTunes
• Gary Broslsma - "created Numa Numa on YouTube" - 15 million plays
• Brooke Parkhurst - turned blog into a book deal and a Conde Nast Deal
• Amanda Congdon - her segment was literally 90 seconds max - considering she hyped the heck out of this, it must be a shock to her about what they actually showed.
• John Vesely - was able to turn a MySpace album into a best-selling album with over 18 million plays on MySpace
• Brent Weinstein - his firm UTA is looking for online talent to help make people into celebs (they represent Ask A Ninja)

Overall, I thought the show was well done but could have used another 30-60 minutes as it felt very rushed. Give these people a chance to explain how they did what they did, but more importantly what they are doing now and where they are going.

Also, I think we all need to remember our audience. I just can't speak about this enough. When you get the chance to sit on TV in the real world, make sure you remember that most people watching are not Internet geeks. I can only guess that the name Nick Denton means nothing to most CNBC viewers.

Last afternoon I attended a panel, "The Rise of the Blogebrity" which included Nick Douglas, formerly of Valleywag, Amanda Congdon, formerly of Rocketboom. Nick now runs LookShiny and Amanda vblogs for ABC News and Starring Herself. There were two other videobloggers on the panel, Casey McKinnon (Galacticast) and Karina Longworth (Netscape). Also on the panel was a stats guy, Henry Copeland and was moderated by the head of Blogebrity, Kyle Bunch.

Before I get to my comments, does anyone else think that Amanda looks like Miss USA Tara Connor? When Amanda walked in with her new hairdo, I had to do a doubletake! Both beautiful women (amanda photo from Jeremiah). As much as I gave Amanda a hard time a few months ago, I think she did a good job on this panel.

Come inside for my notes...