From the truth or hoax file: Apparently, Now officially confirmed: Amanda Congdon, the blogosphere's "It" girl, has been given her walking papers. (check out Amanada's farewell video.) Her take: Andrew Baron, who owns 51% of Rocketboom, didn't want her around anymore,
and in a democratic society, the majority rules. If you ask me, it's a bizarre and hard-to-believe move given Amanda is the very user-friendly public face of Rocketboom, which is just started to see some major revenue growth. Did Amanda's fame and interest in acting become an issue? It's the blogosphere's biggest scandal of the year! (note: tongue firmly in cheek) The burning question now is whether Rocketboom can continue to be Rocketboom without Amanda? Sure, everyone can be replaced but Amanda is Rocketboom and Rocketboom is Amanda. Wanna start some idle speculation about Amanda's replacement: how about Canadian Amber MacArthur (right), who appears on G4TechTV's Call for Help, Gadget & Gizmos and Torrent shows?Update: Mathew Ingram had an e-mail chat with Andrew, who explained that Amanda wanted to move to Los Angeles but she was not willing to wait until Rocketboom had put together a transition plan. All in all, it sounds messy. As for Rocketboom's future, I disagree with Michael Arrington's belief Congdon's departure is "an unmitigated disaster". If handled properly and tactfully, Rocketboom can successfully replace Congdon with a new, fresh face. To be honest, Amber MacArthur wouldn't be a bad choice, although I suspect she's relatively unknown south of the border.
Addendum: Congdon's departure just seems, well, weird. The fact she announced her departure on the Rocketboom "set" was either a goodwill gesture by Baron or a bizarre hoax given many folks in the U.S. just came off the July 4th holiday and a four-day weekend - an eternity for a country that deems two weeks of vacation a year as more than enough time away from work.