After posting about Amanda Congdon’s video exiting Rocketboom yesterday updates continued to roll in and the story contained more twists and turns than an episode of The Twilight Zone.

I kept adding the new information as updates, but now Amanda has added a new post entitled “For The Record” which deserves a completely new post on its own. So I can keep the sequence of events straight in my own head, I’ve written things down while it is still fresh in my mind.

First, let’s review the sequence of events as they unfolded yesterday — for me, anyway:

1) discovered Amanda Congdon’s soon to be famous ‘Unboomed’ video, thanks to a pointer by Vallewag. You can watch it below.

At the beginning of the video Amanda explains the following:

I’m actually here … to … tell you guys because I think it’s so important to be transparent with Rocketboom viewers.

2) I blogged the news that Amanda was leaving Rocketboom and quoted what she said in the video, also linking to a quote by Valleywag about the situation.

Amanda claims she was a 49% partner, while Andrew Baron owned 51% of Rocketboom

Based on the information in the video, I didn’t feel I needed to go all Geraldo and get the other side of telling one person’s side of the story. Hey, that’s what updates and future blog posts are all about. I still don’t and wouldn’t change a thing that happened yesterday, despite Dave Winer’s finger wagging at all blogger coverage of the event “so far” characterizing as: “has been pretty one-sided and totally shoddy and unfair.” Please somebody, anybody read my original post (sans updates) verbatim and tell me where what was written was unfair and shoddy considering the information I had at the time? I think my post was balanced and dealt with the facts as I saw them at the time.

Anyway, I hit publish to that blog post yesterday and then continued reading other posts in my RSS aggregator.

3) Soon I saw a techmeme post in my aggregator leading to other posts about Amanda Unboomed. I followed a post by j.botter thanks to techmeme that shared a link to at that time the only public comment I’d seen telling the other side of the story by Amanda’s partner, Andrew Baron, listed in the Yahoo Videoblogging Group.

4) I added an update to the original blog entry at 10:34am PST containing the following new information:

TWIST #1
Andrew Baron indicates in that Yahoo Groups post that he learned about Amanda leaving Rocketboom the same way the rest of us did: via her Unboomed video (shown above). Andrew’s quote verbatim:

I have just learned of this myself from watching Amanda’s video. I guess it is in fact over.

I’m not sure what I will do - I have no one else to take Amanda’s place and haven’t really ever imagined Rocketboom without her except for the past week as everything has been up in the air.

This information doesn’t necessarily dispute Amanda’s assertion that “Andrew doesn’t want me to be his partner any more” although it is a rather significant change in the storyline.

Rumor #1: j.bott posted on his blog the speculation that the real reason Amanda left Rocketboom might have to do with a personal relationship gone sour:

Andrew and Amanda were apparently an “item” until recently, and it’s being speculated that a bad breakup is the root cause of Amanda leaving the show. I’d assumed from Amanda’s farewell video that she’d been fired by Andrew, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

5) Shortly after publishing the update, Chuck Olsen would stop by in the comments to refute the romantic rumor #1: “Amanda and Andrew were not romantically involved.”

My request for Chuck to provide more information to backup his assertion went (and remains) unanswered. On Chuck’s blog, he had the following message:

I’ve spent the last 4 days trying to get Amanda and Andrew to come together, but… it’s too far gone.

Note: As I write this, I notice Chuck has added more information in the comments section of his blog:

It’s remarkable that about a dozen people knew about this, and not a single one of them leaked it. Amanda posting this video was the first public announcement. We were trusted to keep it “in the family” so to speak. I guess we have no obligation to do so now, but my first instinct isn’t to spill my guts about everything — my first instinct is to (a) mourn, and (b) prevent the spread of false rumors.

6) More comments to my blog post, including one by Dave Coustan who claimed to have received an email from Andrew Baron which adds yet another twist.

TWIST #2
Writes Andrew Baron in an alleged email to Dave Coustan with permission to reprint:

We wanted her to get to Hollywood to pursue her personal opportunities as soon as possible, but her demand to move this week without waiting any longer, without a justification, and without an adequate proposal for a plan for how the show itself would work, we were unable to uproot Rocketboom from NYC at this time.

7) At this point Amanda’s claim on video — in her own words — to “be more transparent” was starting to crack and I added the information above in an update at 12:35pm PST, along with the following statement:

Kinda odd if true that Amanda didn’t just say this in her video blog instead of making it sound like a split that wasn’t amicable. I mean, in the spirit of “transparency” after all (sarcasm). Something isn’t adding up here.

While writing and publishing the update, my blog post received a trackback from darkmoon confirming the romance side, but which would shortly be struckthru with the message:

Oops. My bad. Amanda and Mario, not Amanda and Andrew. My fault on the fact check, Amanda. My apologies. Andrew Baron is the business partner and “producer”.

There appears to have been no romantic involvement between Congdon and Baron. Rumor #1, which started as far as I can tell with a blog post by j.bott is bogus. Note: he did use the word “speculation” but didn’t cite any sources for this information.

9) As the day moved on, a couple more events unfolded and frankly I lost interest in following the coverage. I read all of the posts that showed up in my aggregator and most of the ones that appeared on techmeme. Later in the day I’d add a final update to the post at 4:56pm PST which covered Netscape and Weblogs Inc pointman Jason Calacanis blog post offering Congdon a job to be the daily Netscape top news anchor, complete with her owning the content after a short window of time. Jason also pointed out that Time Warner / AOL had a nice new studio in Beverly Hills. Jason made it sound like Amanda could name her price. Seemed like a great gig but too bad it was AOL.

Also in the update, as mentioned earlier was a link to Dave Winer’s post claiming he had insider knowledge to the communication breakdown between Congdon and Baron. Specifically Dave wrote: “it’s totally unfair to say that Amanda was fired.” In Dave’s post he links to mashable, techcrunch, rexblog, nial kennedy and whatsnextblog in a sentence that reads: “Yet many of the bloggers covering the event say she was fired.”

Dave is correct that many people did lead with Amanda being fired. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones here that didn’t. My title: Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon rocketed out the door sort of says it all to me, even today after the twists and turns.

10) Later in the day a message appeared on Rocketboom, unsigned that confirmed that Amanda Congdon had actually quit

TWIST #3
Official message on rocketboom.com says Amanda quit, here is partial text (emphasis mine):

Amanda Congdon has decided to move to L.A. to pursue opportunities that have arisen for her in Hollywood.

We wanted to meet her demands to move production out to L.A., however, we are a small company and have not been able to figure out a way to make it work, financially and in many other ways at this time. While we continue to remain with open arms, Amanda has in fact quit and left Rocketboom. So sadly, we bid Amanda adieu and wish her all the best.

Rocketboom goes on.

Andrew Baron, the founder and creator of Rocketboom, will stay with the company in New York and will continue to produce and direct the show. We are in the daunting process of recruiting a replacement for Amanda.

Clearly at this point all hopes of transparency in the beginning — as Amanda had promised in her video — were shattered. I thought this story had pretty much run its course, thinking maybe there would be some sort of joint statement.

No way.

11) Last night Amanda Congdon fired up a detailed blog post mentioned at the top of this post as “For The Record” where she delves even deeper into the story, leaving absolutely no room for guessing (ahem, Dave Winer).

TWIST #4
Congdon identifies Chuck Olsen as “The Mediator.” Remember, Chuck was the guy who refuted Rumor #1.

TWIST #5
Congdon recounts a letter allegedly sent by Baron on June 25 that she claims to have responded to on the same day. See her very first red text response to the opening sentence:

Baron: Dear Amanda, this is my last attempt to reach out and let you know I really wish you would stay.

Congdon: Andrew, you fired me.

We now officially have a he said, she said. Congdon claims she was fired, Baron says she quit. It has to be one or the other, so which is it?

TWIST #6
A bizarre explanation by Congdon explaining her video (see above) yesterday:

I had hoped to keep things civil, and thought my video message to the Rocketboom viewers was very neutral. I felt the need to communicate with the RB audience, without getting into the nitty-gritty of “he said, she said”. Dirty laundry is not attractive. That said, ALL the facts, at this point, based on Andrew’s actions, need to be presented.

Transparency includes dirty laundry, yes? Transparency includes ALL the facts, yes? This paragraph makes Congdon look very bad. She should never have trotted out that bogus “transparent” line in her video. Her video was clearly intentional spin made to look like there was a “neutral” situation that clearly wasn’t neutral.

TWIST #7
Congdon claims that Baron agreed to allow her to work on Rocketboom from LA and then reneged:

Baron: Since you have claimed that you are moving next week, and because you have never suggested a plan for how this move can integrate into Rocketboom, and because you have already said your goodbye, I get the message and will now move on myself the best I can.

Congdon: Andrew, see our long term and extensive plan described above.

And, as it turns out, I cannot move to LA because our plan was for me to be engaged in, and compensated for, work on Rocketboom there. Since you will no longer allow that, I have no source of income and therefore cannot move.

Does Congdon have a written or (gasp) verbal agreement for the 49%?
The major bone of contention going forward could be whether or not a written or verbal agreement spells out the 49% that Congdon allegedly owns [Update: in the comments of Congdon’s post she indicates that “My contract with Andrew IS in writing, is filed with the bank, and still stands.”]. I’m getting the feeling that TWIST #8 is going to involve lawyers. Let’s hope Chuck Olsen is wrong and it’s not too far gone because this will end up in court and for both parties sake a written agreement with partnership percentage will be a lot less messier in the courts. Verbal agreements are very dicey.

I think the way this whole thing went down was shameful and amateurish. It’s like a bad relationship on the Brady Bunch instead of professional. It is true that part of the draw of videoblogging is the amateur angle, but from a business perspective the “transparency” displayed here — or lack thereof when promised initially (by Congdon) — has been terrible.

Yes, we’ve gotten more transparency after criticizing but I don’t know what or who to believe at this point. I think as business people both Congdon and Baron handled this situation miserably.

What can they do now to fix things?
They aren’t asking my advice, but if they were I’d tell them to do the following ASAP:

- release a joint statement on rocketboom.com along with videoblog with both of them on camera talking about the situation perhaps with The Mediator Chuck Olsen.
- announce who the replacement host will be, if there is one. If there isn’t one, then announce that Amanda Congdon will remain as the host until a suitable replacement is found
- get some lawyers to draw up a formal contract if one isn’t in place as to who owns and controls what percentage of Rocketboom. If no agreement can be reached, then set court dates to resolve.
- But in the meantime the show must go on. It seems to me the priority of things here is completely out of whack. Rocketboom.com should be the priority not some he said, she said exit drama. Get the show back on and start repairing a damaged relationship with the viewer base that will inevitably involve the most passionate viewers taking sides. I’m not taking any sides here except to say that I think Congdon’s video yesterday was poorly executed. The fact that she admits it wasn’t the whole truth and played upon being “transparent” with viewers makes me trust what she says less going further.

Now I’m done with this story as far as posts here at Hmm until there is some major revelation and/or solution. We can continue this discussion in the comments below. Clearly these folks can use some good business advice right about now from somewhere. If you were a business advisor for these two, what would you advise them to do?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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