Rocketboom Fight on Yahoo! - Amanda Congdon and Andrew Michael Baron Battle On ABC Content

Update! Andrew Baron responds to this dustup.

As I just reported, Amanda Congdon's got a new show on ABCNews.com. When I was watching the program, my first reaction was "Gee, that looks like Amanda on Rocketboom, but without the map."

Well it seems like I wasn't the only one who thought so. Andrew Michael Baron (pictured below), Rocketboom creator and co-owner (with Congdon) apparently has seen the show and doesn't at all like it, feeling it's a kind of rip off of his original work. This position has spilled over into a massive argument being played out in all of its ugliness on the Yahoo message board for video-bloggers. But you don't have to worry about finding the message board thread, I'll give you the blow-by-blow as it stands here Saturday, December 16th.

It started on Wednesday, December 13th, with this Yahoo! post from Andrew Michael Baron where he states he's offended:



"Jeeze, I have never been so offended.

Its like Alice and Wonderland around here, somebody pinch me:
http://www.dembot. com/011895. html"

The link above refers to this message Andrew wrote:

"Some of the legal documents between me and Amanda Congdon are circulating and I have received several calls from the press on the "Amanda story" or "Amanda Gate" as I have heard it said in one email.

A writer from the LA Times, Richard Rushfield, who was referred by Gina Piccalo, is currently investigating the information and mentioned I could say as much here so let's just wait and see his take instead of hearing it from me.

I will say this: yes, it is in fact my position that the Amanda Across America, ABC News and HBO projects are all Rocketboom projects that were usurped out of Rocketboom by Amanda when she quit.

And when I say usurped, I don't just mean a little bit. I spent months working on these projects and relationships. I spent a great deal of legal fees on contracts, etc. - we are talking deep, deep development.

Cory Bergman is asking people what they think of her new project and others will no doubt be pitching in with commentary. Well I have an opinion too and I am going to be candid. This is a subject that is important to me and my field.

After seeing what she has done with Amanda Across America (no spirit or production value) and now ABC News which is a carbon copy of what I hired her to do for Rocketboom, I give her an F for creativity and originality and a D- for effort. Seeing her take a "turn to camera 2", just as we do in today's episode of Rocketboom is just embarrassing.

So besides all this, which only just scratches the surface, there is a great deal of news that I will leave up to Richard to report on regarding the progress that Rocketboom has made, some pretty damn big news that no one yet knows!"

That fired the first shot on the Yahoo! Message Board; the fur started flying from there...

First, a couple of vloggers referred to a misspelling of the word "Internet" as "Iternet" and which in an Intenet world can be quickly repaired with little fuss. But I think the vloggers were trying to be nasty toward Amanda behind Andrew's cries over content theft.

Then Amanda saw Andrew's rant that I posted above and responded with this:

"Andrew, get a grip. Please.

This

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=rocketboom.com&url=rocketboom.com

is not my fault.

You made the decision to let me go. So I went.

As for your outlandish claims about HBO and ABC, please contact my lawyers. Let's do this the right way. And having a desk and a second camera are not ideas you own. Those are conventions.

Best to focus on your own show, I think. Or you can continue to attempt to drag me down and write "emotional" emails to ABC but I'm done talking about this publicly. Time to move on."

That "this" Amanda refers to is the graph shown here:



What it shows is that Rocketboom traffic dropped from the 1.2 million daily visitors it enjoyed during the much publicized and televised business breakup of Amanda and Andrew to an average of around 150,000 daily visitors now. In part, Amanda's departure caused the rise and the eventual fall of the shows traffic, so she's wrong there. But I digress.

Andrew's rant caused Steve Watkins, another participant on the message board, to write this response to Baron:

"Wow you still havent got over this? You still dont recognise that this whining makes you look like a bit of an ass? You think you can turn back time or use legal means to ensure you get the credit etc you deserve for all those wonderfully original ideas and contract negotiations?

Its not like rocketboom was 100% original, borrows from the past and otehr formats all the time.

You'll just have to learn to live with the fact that Amanda has as much moral right to build on her legacy with rocketboom as you do. I dont know what the law will say, obviously there are a load of boring specifics that I dont want to know about (Im sick of your dirty laundry being waved in my face), I hope you get laughed out of court. Theres not a single idea in rocketboom or anythign else that I think should be protected, and it would be utterly unrealistic to expect Amanda to build a totally new no-camera persona just to avoid any comparisons with the past.

You arent the first person to get a rude awakening when it comes to the fact that the person the viewers see may have an equal or stronger relationship with the viewer than the show/brand itself. But time has now passed, isnt there any progress?

For me you are defecating on your own legacy, please stop.

Steve Elbows"

Andrew answered Amanda's original reponse presented above with this:

"Amanda, I have always been outspoken about sharing my experiences with Rocketboom and this is no longer an exception.

You can hide talking about it publicly, we see how that has led to your advantage. As long as no one speaks up, you continue to lie and mislead people about what you have done for "yourself". Meanwhile no one can learn from the problems you have created.

As you know our lawyers ARE working on it. I hope your lawyer is listening when I say yet again, look here below how you have out right lied in saying I let you go.

People should know that in order to do business in this field there is a need to protect oneself from this kind of atrocious behavior.

Luckily I have, its just that I have previously been quiet about it for legal reasons myself.

So now Im ready to share with everyone how I expect this will turn out and then we can talk about it, take wagers, and see what the judge has to say.

In the end, we should all be in a better position to engage in creative partnerships."

Hmm....Take wagers?! More on that in a bit. Let's move on.

Jesse Cooper, another member of the message board, wrote this:

"A creative partnership? ??? I thought you all had that with rocketboom.. . now it sounds as if you would like to creatively get paid by ABC for what Amanda does regardless if you are a part of it or not."

On top of Jesse -- no pun intended -- was this post by of all people Mario Librandi, Amanda's boyfriend and participant in Rocketboom when Amanda was working for it:

"Andrew,

There is nothing to hide. Facts are facts. You made a mistake by kicking us out and now you have to live with it. Good luck with the lawsuit.

And if you really want to share experiences, I am still waiting for that $7,050 check.

I've always said to Amanda that we should just have a public debate to end this once and for all, that way we can show everyone the truth. "

Well the "public debate" is actually unfolding on the message board. Here's Andrew Michael Baron's retort:

"I dont want anything at all right now. I just want to talk about it. I think its lame, that all. I have not filed a suit against Amanda.

If you had a business yourself and one of your partners left and took all of your contacts and business relationships, your code, your design and your format and the projects that meant the most to you, the same projects that you spent a lot of money on, I think you would be concerned, especially if they did not have any control over these projects.

Its illegal in most cases. This is just what I have learned."

And this direct reponse to Mario:

"Great, easy.

Chuck, you are the man with the answer. It was the night before
Amanda posted her video. As our mediator, I told you I was going to
make a demand.

I said I was no longer negotiating and I demanded that Amanda come
into work on Monday and film a news day for Rocketboom.

Everything else was negotiable but that one demand I put on Amanda
was non negotiable.

So what happened? As a matter of fact she did not meet my demand,
gave up, as we expected she would, and that was it.

This was the third time she had quit and this time she quit for good.

End of story on that one."

Yahoo! Message Board member Adam Quirk feels its necessary to "take sides" in this issue because, as he states it, Amanda has "has lied to the public, specifically us in this group, about the Rocketboom situation, and has underhandedly stolen our colleague Andrew's hard work, time, and business contacts and passed them off as her own.

I find it's necessary to take sides in situations such as this, because standing on the sideline applauding the chaos is inhumane.

Someone is lying to you, either Amanda or Andrew. I don't know Amanda. I know Andrew. He has not lied to me before and I see no reason why he would now."

Wow. And John Coffey sides with Steve writing:

"Right on Steve! I began to think Andrew was a real schmuck when he posted the contract from Microsoft re Zune on his blog.

JCH"

He did? Gotta check that out. But first, Chuck Olsen, who was the business manager for Rocketboom and may still be, answers here and with love:

"First -- I want to say congrats to Amanda. It's very surreal seeing her on ABCnews.com, sort of like the grownups left
the cameras and lights on and she snuck in and made a show.

I'm also tickled to see links to AAA shows I edited up there (Atrios, Vilsack, Jarvis).

As for rehashing Rocketboom.. . the community has spoken and said "No."

I'm very intrigued by all of this and have my own thoughts/insights. And I do understand why you'd be upset today Andrew.

However I fear any comment I make on that last offer to Amanda (and whether she quit or was fired) will have some legal significance in the future. It'll also reopen the whole can of worms. We have the emails of the final proposal, and we all know things fell apart at the end.

Anyway, y'all are happier and more successful than ever going your separate ways. Hopefully that will still be the case after the lawyers battle it out...

love,
chuck"

Then, just when it seemed this thread was about to reach an end, Andrew Baron chimed in with this post, which reveals a bit of jealously over Amanda's success at securing a show with ABC:

"On the topic of ABC's videoblog, I'm going to set aside all of the technical problems everyone has already mentioned with the video distribution and the ABC platform - the fact that there are no RSS feeds, the comments are pre-approved and filtered (even when not offensive), the video scrolls have been turned off, one is forced to view long, irrelevant pre-roll ads that outlast many people's curiosity and especially the closed platform with no mobile or local
potential.

In otherwords, the only difference between this video platform and one from say, 1997, is that for this one, at least the video does come on and plays.

Maybe they can hire someone who knows a thing or two about it.

I'm going to suggest that the greatest failure of this project however has to do with the severely expensive resources that are
being used for a product that can be much more valuable for a mere fraction of the effort and costs.

My question is, how much money did it take to produce this?

Also, if all of the effort only goes into a once-a-week show, how effective and interested are the people behind the show to take so much time and money to do so little?

For instance, we know they are probably paying Amanda a professional salary. They are also paying two senior level producers for this. Then there is at least one editor, a camera person (unless one of the producers is a cameraman), lighting tech, audio guy, all with premium 'ABC' salaries. I am just speculating, perhaps I have missed some.

In addition to that, the entity ABC needs to make revenue (beside the people), yet they also have at least one rep that works with Amanda besides the producers and other production staff. Surely they have someone who works on the website if not a section of a team. Amanda's agent needs a professional share. Amanda's manager too. They obviously have a very aggressive PR team too (which they will definitely need to drive people to the show). Lets not forget the advertisers! They are the ones supporting this and because so many people need to get paid such high salaries, the advertisers need to get paid most of the real-estate of the website. In many ways, this scenario is typical of one where the advertisers are way more important than the show itself. The show is just a tool for ad sales in the end, after all.

The point I want to make is, there are probably WAY too many people needed to pull off this one 5 minute production exclusively for a small flash file on one website.

A company like ABC should perhaps use their expensive resources to produce content that needs expensive resources. Was there special access gained? Was there need for expensive equipment? Travel expenses? 3 producers?

No, there was no sign of any need for any of the above that I could see."

That new rant caused Amanda's brother Andrew Congdon to give this link to the Wikipedia definition for "Sour Grapes"

To which Andrew fires back: "Apparently, not having your own ideas runs in the family. ;)"

Freakin nasty, man! Wow. It wasn't called for at all, and got Gary Short really pissed off, leading him to write this:

"Andrew, you are really starting to get on my nerves now with this carping; it is so childish, it's like listening to my kids arguing over who has been given the most veg and how it's soooo unfair. For goodness sake stop being such a baby.

"The sad fact of business is that people come together, they do great work and sometimes they disagree and go their own way - that's life Andrew, get over it. The thing is there is no doubt you have talent, but you are not encouraging
anyone to reach out to you with a new business idea/partnership with this behavior. People will be reading these outbursts of yours and saying to themselves, "is this what it is like if it doesn't work out?" and they'll be giving you a big body swerve.

While we are on the subject, stop pretending that Rocketboom was some huge intellectual breakthrough on your part, that it was all your wonderful idea. What utter nonsense. Entertaining though Rocketboom was (and still is) there wasn't a single new idea there. I mean, taking a look at the more quirky aspects of the news? Been done. Fronting the show with a good looking, intelligent and charismatic woman. Been done. Hosting the show as a video cast for download?
Been done. So what was your idea exactly?

Like I said though, I don't want to pour oil on troubled waters, as I think we are all tired of hearing about it - just please, get over yourself will you?

Cheers,
Gary"

Whew! Man, the fur's flyin! It's a good thing they're not in the same room! This was on Thursday, and it continued on and on through Friday, December 15th, with some posters asking for an end to the feud and others actually adding fuel to the fire, and firing-up Andrew in the process. Here's a posting example by Andrew that shows he's ready to fight, sort of:

"Gary, whats the point of telling me Im getting on your nerves? You are doing exactly what Andrew Congdon did and I have no problem speaking up about it and defending myself.

I think I provided a well rounded argument for disucssion about the cost of doing business when merging established media and new media.

When Andrew Congdon chimed in to "refute" my contribution to this group by saying "Sour Grapes", I think this shows dolt behavior.

I think this is now your unfortunate oversight.

Your comments should have been directed at him."

Then on Saturday, just when it seemed the thread finally did pass on, it gained new life, with Andrew accusing Amanda of taking business relationships and deals he started:

"Oh boy, digging a deeper hole for yourself.

ABC News is exactly the people we were in deep talks with. ABC NEws and ABC Family. Its all under Dinsey and we were in project talks with all. You have just lied again, mark my words here. I will release the document to my blog then.

The AAA story? Jeze, you have not told the relevant truth, documents are forthcoming. I spent months on this project and it was my sponsor relationship you took for Ford. You quit before the deal was done. You were only able to complete the deal for no money. My deal was for $250,000. No wonder you were able to close it.

HBO contacted Rocketboom and wanted to do a show with Rocketboom. You told them I didnt want to. I said I did. I will provide docs, forthcoming.

Finally, now we can get somewhere.

And Amanda fires back, with gusto:

"Call up ABC. We were working on shows for ABC Family that I was never intended to host. Isn't that right? Anyone at ABC will attest to that. They were trying to to figure out what department to put us in and
that's where we landed. ABC Family.

"Ari, my agent at Endeavor, turned HBO onto me. HBO never approached Rocketboom directly. They never wanted you. They wanted my personality. I considered bring you along for the ride IF things panned out and if HBO was game, but since there was only one meeting at that point it was far from a sure thing... sure glad you never got involved.

"As far as AAA goes, just another example of you failing to secure sponsorship. No contract, no deal. Unless there was a contract that you hid from me? You did hide a lot of business stuff."

Then Andrew goes and digs up past emails that were exchanged between HBO, he, Amanda, and other parties, and presents the whole kit-and-kaboodle on the message board for all to see. Here it is:

As you can see, I spent legal fees on the HBO opportunity that was
meant for Rocketboom but yea, as I said, you stole it away for yourself.

Lie #2. Resolved.

Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Amanda Congdon"
> Date: June 2, 2006 2:20:46 PM EDT
> To: "Thompson, Bryan"
> Cc: "Johnson, Channing" , "andrew michael
> baron" , "Jim Congdon"
>
> Subject: Re: Matthew Lesher, semi-urgent
>
> Bryan and Channing,
>
> Thank you for getting back to me on this so quickly. As it turns
> out, the HBO meeting is now happening on Monday rather than later
> today. The introductory meeting between Ari, Andrew and me is still
> on as scheduled at 3pm Pacific. How does this change the order of
> events, if at all?
>
> Yes, please prepare Matthew's termination letter.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Amanda
>
> On 6/2/06, Thompson, Bryan < bthompson@akingump. com> wrote:
> Amanda:
>
> I spoke to Channing about this. We think that your analysis of the
> situation is spot-on accurate and that it would be appropriate for
> you now to terminate your relationship with Matthew.
>
> Accordingly, we believe that you should inform Matthew, both orally
> and in writing, that your relationship with him is now terminated.
> You should also inform him that he is not to participate in the HBO
> conference call, nor is he to contact or speak with HBO or Endeavor
> concerning you, Andrew, or Rocketboom.
>
> Let me know if you would like us to prepare a letter to Matthew
> concerning this.
>
> In order to assure that Matthew is not on the call, you will need
> to contact him orally before the call. Even if we sent a letter
> right now, he might not actually read it before the HBO call
> begins. When you speak to him you can let him know that a letter
> will be coming.
>
> From: amazingamanda@ gmail.com [mailto:amazingamanda@ gmail.com] On
> Behalf Of Amanda Congdon
> Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 10:19 PM
> To: Johnson, Channing; Thompson, Bryan; andrew michael baron
> Cc: Jim Congdon
> Subject: Matthew Lesher, semi-urgent
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> I spoke with Matthew Lesher this evening. I asked him why Ari
> Emanuel would be under the impression he was Rocketboom's manger.
> He said he didn't know, that maybe Ari just "assumed" as much. He
> then said, in fact, that both he and Ari had no interest in the
> management of Rocketboom. He also said that because Ari (and thus
> Endeavor) were not involved in the book deal, that he felt Ari was
> being "aggressive" in wanting 10% equity in Rocketboom. I asked him
> why he then jumped on the bandwagon and asked for the same thing
> (on Friday Matthew brought up getting 10% too). He started back
> peddling and saying that we were just beginning the conversation,
> that nothing had been decided. I told him it sounded like he didn't
> have my best interests in mind, and he said no, he was just
> presenting all the options. If he truly had my best interest in
> mind, he would have told me he thought Ari was being aggressive on
> Friday, not now after I pressed him about it. Bottom line is that I
> don't trust him, so I believe the relationship will have to be
> terminated. I would love to hear what everyone else thinks.
>
> The big issue now is that I have a conference call today (Friday)
> scheduled with Caroline Strauss at HBO to workshop show ideas at
> 2:30 Pacific, and I don't want Matthew in on that. Ari is the only
> one that had anything to do with setting that up. Matthew also has
> included himself in an introductory conversation that was supposed
> to happen directly before the HBO meeting, with Andrew, Ari and
> me. Andrew just sent me an email suggesting perhaps the talk with
> Matthew occur very shortly before the HBO meeting is scheduled, so
> as not to give Matthew time to backlash before the meeting. Help
> please!!
>
> Thanks so much for all of your guidance,
>
> Amanda

What Andrew is trying to show is that the HBO relationship started with him and Amanda but she's basically correct. What HBO was talking about according to these emails is how Amanda would work with them. it shows that Amanda was talking about show ideas with an HBO rep. Unless there was something in the contract to block this possibility, there's nothing Andrew can do about Amanda profiting from relationships she started at Rocketboom. Plus, if she owns 49 percent of Rocketboom, she still has rights to these contacts by that agreement alone.

But I digress, again. The Yahoo! feud carried on from there today, with Amanda calling for Andrew to be banned from the message board!: :

"Hi Ryanne,

I think considering Andrew's onslaught of attacks have been unprovoked and
unsubstantiated, it might not be a bad idea to ban him. All I have ever done is defend
myself."



But of course that didn't happen. Hell. It's a soap opera, and people love these things, and I guess I'm one of them. It's content. But after three days of this, even Robert Scoble (pictured) and Ted Tagami the "Digital Buddha" had enough:

"I agree. This isn't impressing me in the least about either party.

I don't really care anymore. You both are polluting this group and it needs to stop, and stop now.

Take it onto your blogs where, if we care, we can read your slings at each
other.

Robert"

_____

From: videoblogging@ yahoogroups. com [mailto:videoblogging@ yahoogroups. com]
On Behalf Of Digital Buddha
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2006 10:49 AM
To: videoblogging@ yahoogroups. com
Subject: Re: [videoblogging] Re: OOoh, Amanda's Up!

"Andrew and Amada, I admire your work both when you were working together, and now independently of one another. I am embarrassed for the two of you with your public display. The court of public opinion is not the one to discuss this. It may not seem like poor judgement today to either of you, but you may be thinking much differently a year or two from now.

Please, please, please take it off line. You are now at the stage of "virtual shouting". I am waiting for objects to start to fly. It will just get uglier. I hope you and your respective legal counsel will be able to settle this swiftly."

I doubt it. What's happening is Andrew's rather upset over Amanda's success. I for one am proud of her. Andrew does have some very sound concerns and he uses his blog to explain them, but the bottom line is that without an agreement not to basically go off and start a new Rocketboom, a competitor, then he can do nothing to recover damages. The other nagging problem -- for Andrew -- is that Rocketboom was supposedly 49 percent owned by Amanda, which places Andrew even more in a position of loss.

So, while Amanda's new show gets recognized around the World (in Japan for example and Italy as another), cheered, jeered, and hailed in the New York Times, the one thing that's fact is she's back and with just a bit of a loss in her Q rating for just a month before this deal with ABC emerged into the new show. Now, she's on CNN today, sounds great, and is moving forward.

Meanwhile, Andrew's coming off as, well, jealous in the blogsphere, with such words at "trashes" associated with his name or just being the guy who fired Amanda as he comes off in TechCrunch and of course on Amanda's own blog, which is now even more popular -- and looking rather stupid in the process. That's not good at all. Andrew's best move is to congradulate Amanda.

Heck, if I were him, I'd hug her and kiss her and whisper sweet nothings in her ear -- and get her a Christmas Present -- for breaking down the door between vlogging and television and entering it just by feuding with him. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was a plot hatched by Andrew. What stops me from believing it is, is that Andrew's not making money or traffic from it. In this, he's hurting himself -- and guaranteeing that this will continue to be a nightmare for him.