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BizReport : Blogs & Content : November 17, 2006
Blogger Turns Celebrity
Celebrities are becoming bloggers to market themselves better. And bloggers in reverse are turning into celebrities, or rather “cewebrities”. Amanda Congdon, the former host of Rocketboom.com – an online news vblog, has this week given an interview to Businessweek commenting on her new deals with ABC and HBO.
by Sasha Puhova
The pretty co-founder of Rocketboom.com, who since their launch in fall 2004 ‘rocketed’ from 70 to 70,000 viewers in only 10 months, left her position as the blog’s quirky news-presenter in June this year. The figures of last month show that each episode had in average 156,980 viewers per show, but Amanda should not be too disappointed for being un-boomed as she this week revealed her plans to go national.

She will be developing a new comedy program for the HBO. The topic is unclear yet, but Amanda hopes to work both behind the scenes and appear on the screen. She will also be hosting a weekly online video blog on ABC and will be regularly appearing on ABC online news channels providing commentaries and news analysis. The difference, she mentions, is that this time (on ABC)
“this will be information that has been verified. It isn't going to be something that we throw together and hope the facts are right. It's ABC News, so it definitely needs to be not false information. At Rocketboom, the fact checking was a little bit—it was what it was, it wasn't always perfect... At ABC, I will have people to help me.”
Good luck, some viewers are skeptical in her abilities so far. Even though she was popular as a host of the 5-minute news blog, we shall see how convincing she will be in a more serious role.
Tags: blogs, celebrity, Rocketboom.com, television
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Comments
I think she's really going to have problems. Even the comments about the need for fact checking makes her sound like she feels superior to the Internet world. Who took Rocketboom as a serious news show? It was a comedy that nobody considered serious, but rather, fun. She's already acting like the old media.
Posted by: Gary Bourgeault (bizofshowbiz.com) on November 19, 2006 21:55
She seems attractive enough that she will get lots of attention from men and she looks respectable enough to get female attention as well. http://sms100.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Tom Bailey on December 18, 2006 19:56
I don't think she will be in problem. Being female, she, instead, will drive up attention of a lot of male readers.
Posted by: Vahsek on December 21, 2006 17:39