Ready for something else other than Rocketboom? In other news.....eMarketer had a story earlier this week looking at YouTube's explosive growth over the past year. According to comScore Media Metrix, YouTube's unique visitors jumped to 12 million in May from 58,000 in August 2005, whle Nielsen//NetRatings suggests YouTube had 20 million unique visitors in May, more than half of whom were between the ages of 35 and 64. Of course, success comes with a price. Apparently, YouTube's server and bandwidth costs are $1-million a month, which is being funded by a $8-million of venture capital raised earlier this year. YouTube has talked about rolling out AdSense-like advertising but it's still talk rather than walk. Speaking of video, Bell Canada is rolling out a new service called Optimax, which guarantees 16Mbps of high-speed residential service for $80 a month and 10Mbps for $65. Naturally, this prompts one to ask about Bell's IP-TV plans but the company declined to bite the bait. Either Bell's IP-TV service, which involves Microsoft, isn't ready yet or the carrier doesn't want to tip its cards yet. It's probably a combination of the two. For more, check out Jon Arnold's blog.

The split between Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon is becoming dirty and nasty and, frankly, immature. The latest chapter is Congdon's release of a letter from Baron, which makes both of them look foolish. It's such a shame because Rocketboom is such a cool and potentially lucrative platform. If they had been able to work something out, everyone could have got want they wanted. Now, it looks like Rocketboom could be doomed. While the cult of personality has its benefits, we're now seeing the other side, and it ain't pretty. This looks like it's going to be a he said/she said public relations battle that will do neither one of them any good. If you visit Rocketboom's site, you'll see a text message with a promise of a new episode on July 10 with an interim host.
Update: A quick scan of the blogosphere suggests if Baron intends to fight a PR war against Congdon, he's going to lose - and lose badly. She's got a tremendous amount of goodwill and support so Baron has everyone to lose by trying to make her look bad - even if she's wrong. Truth be told, Congdon will have a slew of new opportunities to consider while I'm not entirely sure how Rocketboom can maintain its momentum. Does Baron hired someone right away to replace Congdon or does he take his time to find the right person? It has been suggested he could probably score some points by getting Rocketboom users into the selection mix.
Update II: Taking a big step back, the Rocketboom cat-fight is a small story getting more far attention than it deserves. For some much-needed perspective, check out Stuart MacDonald and Rob Hyndman.