Rocket BOOM!
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.
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)
Explore posts in the same categories: Alexa ratings, Amanda Congdon, Andrew Baron, blog networks, chartreuse, ER, fight, George Clooney, Jimmy Jam, lime juice, MTV, Prince, Producer, Rocketboom, Talent, tequila, Terry Lewis, VJ
chartreuse 
July 6, 2006 at 1:05 am
they had sex. bad sex
July 6, 2006 at 1:15 am
I think you are right, Chartreuse. Amanda had done all she could on the show. It’s the perfect time to move on.
July 6, 2006 at 7:10 am
Not really on topic, but sorta —
We need another publicly available stats rating tool to compare with Alexa returns. because to provide data from one source is like providing no data at all.
Sure would be nice if Nielsen or Media Metrix would provided a free resource, or to see someone else get in the game that wasn’t browser or toolbar dependent.
July 6, 2006 at 7:54 am
I love Rocketboom and Amanda. It will be missed.
July 6, 2006 at 8:02 am
I’ve been reading this blog for a long time. I learned about Rocketboom on this blog along with a lot of other cool sites and links.
Everyone is talking about how you should treat talent but no one is talking about the vision of the producers. It was Andrew which really made the show. Amanda was talented but it was Andrew’s vision.
It’s a delicate balance but Amanda would be just another large breasted blonde if it wasn’t for Andrew. He is much more important than Amanda.
July 6, 2006 at 9:22 am
Amanda had in fact peaked but now take a look.
http://blogpulse.com/trend?query1=rocketboom&label1=rocketboom&query2=vlogging&label2=vlogging&query3=&label3=&days=180&x=32&y=7
July 6, 2006 at 9:24 am
RB will miss Amanda I’m sure. Even if Baron was RB, Congdon was the public face of RB. When you watch the news, do you remember the TV Anchor or the producer? Who gets paid ridiculous amounts of money to read stuff in front of the camera?
I agree, after sleeping on it, its time for both of them to do something else.
July 6, 2006 at 9:38 am
I love Rocketboom. I really dig Amanda and Andrew. They are indirectly responsible for the success of this blog.
I wish them both the best.
July 6, 2006 at 9:45 am
Let this be a lesson to wannabee producers everywhere.
I think I will continue to subscribe to the auteur approach to content development. 🙂
July 6, 2006 at 10:09 am
Yeah, I did enjoy Amanda’s spunk on RB. What will happen now, it’s like when Scoble left MS. Everybody’s got an opinion.
July 6, 2006 at 10:17 am
[…] As Stowe Boyd notes, there are a number of useful lessons here — not the least of which is that the 51-49 ownership split is probably a bad idea for a startup, even between friends. My suspicion from Amanda’s lengthy post is that Andrew acted a lot like an owner and perhaps treated Amanda like the hired help, whereas Amanda clearly saw herself as a co-owner and partner. There also appears to be another player, named Mario, who is an unknown quantity, but may have played a sort of Yoko Ono-type role, for any of you aging Beatles fans out there. In the end, as Chartreuse points out, the battle between producer and talent is an age-old one, and it is rarely pretty. […]
July 6, 2006 at 10:39 am
[…] Rocketboom Gate: I don’t have a real opinion. I’ve been both a publisher and a content developer. I’ve walked away from partners, publishers, and the like. I love freedom. I employ people only when I feel its a great investment and I can keep folks happy. It’s an age old battle and one I’ve decided to try and avoid. […]
July 6, 2006 at 10:57 am
Just like a marriage ending, no one can tell you the truth except for the two people in it and there’s two versions of that, too.
These two made magic together; time will tell what they make of things separately. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my partnerships — business, creative or otherwise — when it’s time to move on, it’s time to move on.
I hope they both move on with grace and that everyone else lets them…
July 6, 2006 at 11:17 am
[…] Here are some good posts from Chartreuse , and Scott Karp here and here on the weekly events. […]
July 6, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Love and Rockets
As you may or may not have heard, the videoblog Rocketboom crash-landed this week, much to the dismay of people like me who thought those crazy people were on to something… The terrible thing about blogging news is that…
July 6, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I knew if I waited a little bit you’d have a clear-headed take on this, Chartreuse. Good job.
“Short attention span theatre” is what worries me the most about the whole situation. If it kept going, would Rocketboom have tanked next month? That’s scary.
Are we reverting to a world where creators have to pound out some cheap, dirty, and mind-bogglingly new product every week like a chain-smoking pulp fiction writers in order to survive in this webby world?
July 6, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Oh, I like the sound of that.
July 6, 2006 at 8:14 pm
In the heyday of MTV, which no cool ppl watch anymore, if they ever did, I recall how the VJs were as popular as the top bands. For a while, anyway.
MTV went the way of FM radio…the same old shit over and over again. I did like 120 minutes, and what was that techno program called?
July 7, 2006 at 7:59 am
It occured to me that Amanda is David Lee Roth, and Andrew hopes to keep on rockin’. What I want to know is, where’s the romance? Where’s the “unknown quantity” willing to set himself on fire and commit magnificent suicide off of the Golden Gate Bridge? Instead of crashing and burning, like a great rock n’ roll band, they’ve chosen to peter out, like David Lee Roth & Van Halen. I guess that takes more passion than most people can muster in this calculating age.
July 7, 2006 at 9:46 am
A little history about Amanda — She used to be a MTV VJ , she’s talented this is def. not the end of her. One of my pals down at MTV told me she was quite the talented VJ.
So here’s to Amanda 🙂
Andrew Baron can eat a muffin.
Long live content producers!!!!
July 13, 2006 at 10:59 am
Before all of this brouhaha, I had never even heard of Rocketboom, talk less of watching it. The two main video blogs I watch regularly are 88Slide and Ask-a-Ninja.
That said, Amanda has a great chance to go on to bigger and better things. After all, even though she has left Rocketboom, she still owns 49% of it, so she does have a stake in its continued success, whether she is the public face of it or not. So, girl, time to roll up your sleeves and get back to work.
Now to go and watch my first-ever episode of Rocketboom.
July 30, 2006 at 7:38 pm
[…] Chartreuse The ancient battle of Producer vs. Talent […]
August 20, 2007 at 9:45 am
[…] Or maybe a different producer. […]