Amanda Congdon (born 1981) was the co-producer and host of Rocketboom, the daily three-minute online newscast which Salon described as “one of the most popular video blogs on the Web.” Congdon was the co-scripter with producer-director Andrew Baron, and she was also co-producer (with Baron, Zadi Diaz, Steve Woolf and Brian Lerner) of Rocketboom’s sister channel, Jet Set Show, a vlog for children launched June, 2006. A dispute between Congdon and Baron in July 2006 resulted in Congdon’s departure from the show.Born and raised in Manhattan, Congdon graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University, and then took a job at the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency. In New York theater, she had leading roles in Waafrika (Red Room Theater) and Independence (Manhattan Theatre Source). During the second season of NBC’s reality series The Restaurant, she appeared as the coat check attendant at Rocco’s restaurant. Her other television credits include CSI, The Chris Rock Show (HBO) and a Showtime pilot, Cake Presents. She can also be seen in a Northstar music video, which aired on MTV2, FUSE and VH1’s My Coolest Years.
Involvement with Rocketboom
Congdon began as Rocketboom’s anchor with the show’s October 26, 2004 debut and gave her own reports, often with a comedic slant. As she went from an initial 700 viewers in 2004 to 70,000 viewers in Rocketboom’s first ten months, her success was noted by CBS Evening News, Wired, the Associated Press and others. BusinessWeek labeled it “the most popular site of its kind on the Net.” More viewers visited Rocketboom after a June 11, 2006 interview with Congdon on CNN. The following day, ABC News described her usual approach:
Congdon sits behind the news desk, in front of a world map, as if she’s going to report hard-hitting news, but when she starts talking, she is everything but a typical news anchor: Her eyes pop with expression, her content is quirky and her hand gestures animated.
Her audience continued to increase, going from 100,000 vlog viewers at the end of 2005 to 300,000 by the spring of 2006. Congdon’s catapult to fame was noted in the media. Brad Stone, writing in Newsweek, commented:
It helps, of course, to have talent and some youthful, Web-savvy insouciance. Amanda Congdon has both, and her daily videocast, Rocketboom, is another breakout Web hit. Congdon, 24, was a struggling actress in late 2004 when she answered an Internet ad by Web entrepreneur Andrew Michael Baron, who was looking to start a newsy Webcast. Today their edgy three-minute episodes, starring and co-written by Congdon, riff off things ranging from White House scandals to the new Web-browser wars. With 130,000 daily viewers, Congdon is now getting approached by book and TV agents. “One of the best pieces of advice I ever received from an acting coach was to go out there and create your own vehicle,” she says. “The Internet allows you to do that.”
In some episodes, Congdon appeared in various Manhattan locations, talking to store managers and people on the street. In the April 15, 2005 episode, she stood in Washington Square Park and posed the question “Mac or PC?” to anyone walking by. Eight months later, she returned to the same spot to ask, “Internet Explorer or Firefox?” In an Office Pirates video parody of Rocketboom, Manhattanites were asked, “Coffee or tea?”, and Congdon’s news desk idiosyncracies – her signature head swivel, “hair flip” and habitual paper tossing — were also mocked.
Congdon sometimes went on the road. One memorable episode showed her dancing in various locations throughout St. Petersburg, Russia. She has also performed her frenetic signature dance in the streets and parks of Austin and other cities. Rocketboom’s flexible format allowed her to display her abililties as an monologist, unleashing a variety of comedy characters, both male and female. On a few occasions, she has been seen in sketches with her brother, Andrew Congdon, and her friend Leila, who does a character called a Lexus — ‘”like the car.”
Rocketboom’s “Comments” message board indicated that many viewers visited the vlog solely to see Congdon. Many messages remark on her physical appearance, and requests for dates were posted occasionally by her male admirers. In a reference to Laura and Amanda Wingfield of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, one viewer labeled that group of hopeful suitors “Miss Amanda’s gentlemen callers.”
Departure from Rocketboom
On July 5, 2006, Congdon released a video statement on her blog, Amanda UnBoomed, announcing her departure from the show. Andrew Baron, majority stakeholder of Rocketboom, claimed she was leaving the show to “pursue opportunities … in Hollywood.” However, Congdon maintains that she has been fired, and is living with her parents in Connecticut. While details of her departure remain murky, the same day as her announcement, Congdon received an open job offer from Jason Calacanis, the CEO of Weblogs, Inc.
Source: Amanda Congdon . (2006, July 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:59, July 20, 2006.
