In December 2005, the New York Times heralded a new form of news media -- the video Web log. The medium's first star was "an attractive young woman" named Amanda Congdon, host of Rocketboom -- a show blessed by Steve Jobs himself.
The vlog has been up and running for 14 months, but it's only in the last two that Web video has become new media's favorite new medium - since Apple Computer's iTunes online store began stocking vlogs, calling them video podcasts and making it easy to download them for free viewing on the new iPods. In fact, the day Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, introduced the video iPod to developers, he showed a playlist of video podcasts on his computer. Rocketboom was at the top.
In July 2005, it all came to an end as Amanda and Rocketboom cofounder Andrew Baron split. Soon after, Amanda landed a job at ABCNews.com. The Times described her work there as "a decently far cry from Barbara Walters." The ABCNews.com gig didn't last very long at all and Amanda soon dropped off the media's radar. These days, Amanda is back on the Web, starring in a show called Sometimes Daily. It's a lot like Rocketboom.
Here's the earliest Rocketboom footage we could find, from October 27, 2004:
Here's Amanda's last episode on Rocketboom:
Here's an episode of Sometimes Daily:
