The ever-brilliant Micki Krimmel has written an extensive post on WorldChanging about the current online video landscape, and turned in possibly the only thoughtful and appropriate response I’ve seen so far to the news recently reported that our friend Amanda Congdon and ABC won’t be continuing their relationship for another year.
Micki’s best point is that the online video landscape has evolved and grown so much in the past year, it’s almost useless now to draw conclusions about the viability of the industry based on any one person’s career choices — though I’d add it was pretty useless more than a year ago, when people were using Amanda’s departure from Rocketboom for their own axes to grind about videoblogging and its emerging personalities — many of them were painfully wrong when they made predictions then about her or the medium’s prospects, and I think there’s a good chance many of them are wrong now.
Amanda’s taken a lot of shots by virtue of being one of the first breakout videobloggers to get a lot of mainstream media attention, which these days happens a lot more often than it did a year ago. I know that I’m obviously biased as a known conspirator of Amanda’s, but no one’s written much yet about what a challenging gig she took on at ABC, and how amazing it is that she worked for a year with them at all. I’ve watched and sometimes commiserated with her in open admiration as she forged her way with ABC — a company I’ve done some work with, and know how long it can take to change, for many good and understandable reasons — and as she helped push through a lot of positive change in that organization.
Before Abcnews.com/Amanda, there was no video content on the site simultaneously available via RSS feeds and iTunes podcasts, no flash players with pause buttons, user comments on videos, or regular interaction with the viewer community in every episode. Not to mention that there were no videobloggers working in mainstream media, and covering stories that viewers asked them to do, or soliciting their participation in making the show. The thought of a major news organization like ABC supporting anything like that format for a year, much less getting those changes made within a year, is mind-boggling, if you take a step back from it. Lots of things that have followed, like Wallstrip joining CBS, JETSET joining us at Next New, and the increasing amounts of latitude they’ve each had to make their shows succeed in their new homes, all followed a path pioneered by Amanda.
(Photo by Amanda)
If people want to critique what could have been done better, they should. I’ve always felt that the show was underserved by a poorly designed website and intrusive ad model that made it difficult to watch and interact with, though the podcast remedied some of that for me. For that, we can’t really fault Amanda, who maintains a beautifully simple and easy to use website for her personal videoblog. ABC needs to improve this if they want to build viewership on the web — and new initiatives like the great work being done by ABC Family show that they know it. But at the same time, Amanda and ABC should be applauded for an experiment that’s made both of them smarter — it made a lot of sense for both at the time, and they’re both well-positioned to do even better things next as a result.
