The vlogosphere has its first shake-up: Rocketboom's Amanda Congden was, in her words, unboomed (she has a video, natch). Wanting to set the record straight after Rocketboom showed a week of non-Amanda clips, she says that her Rocketboom partner - and owner of a 51% share in Rocketboom - Andrew Baron fired her and she actually starts to get teary in the video. ValleyWag says she seems much realer in this clip or "it's a hoax and Congdon's finally learned how to act." more ›

Perennial Gothamist favorite Elizabeth Spiers has returned to blogging for the second time with Dealbreaker, a Wall Street finance blog. Expectations are set very high-- after her work at Gawker and Mediabistro, people are expecting a home-run. Jason Calacanis, for one, is bullish: "Anway, if I could buy stock in a person I would buy EZSP..." and Blogebrity has pre-lubricated and suspended all publishing in preparation for the launch: "Years from now, you'll want to be able to tell your kids you were someplace cool when the blog publishing world changed forever." more ›

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Jason Calacanis deserves a public apology for for the post we put up earlier in the day. When we wrote the post, it was meant to be light hearted- poking fun at Jason's latest blog and asking some obvious questions about Weblogsinc. When we tipped him off to the post, Jason got very upset, and especially objected to a line where we jokingly questioned his decisions about staffing. We joked that he had hired his mother and friends to staff his blogs, and that neopotism is probably not the best way to guarantee great blog talent. When Jason got upset, we took out the offending line, which he preserved in the comments. We also softened some of the adjectives in the third and fourth paragraphs, because we wanted to make it clear that the tone was playful, and not mean. I forwarded the IM transcript of our conversation to the Gothamist staff, to tip them off that Jason was angry. That email got sent around a little bit, which was not my intention. more ›

With the launch this week of Bloggingbaby.com, Gothamist has begun to wonder if Weblogs Incorporated has jumped the shark. Jason Calacanis' 40th blog is dedicated to "pregnancy, baby care and parenting", which means lots of posts about baby products, lactation, and diaper-changes. The design features bright colors and a duck logo. Now don't get us wrong: Gothamist loves babies. Especially baby pandas, baby cats, and ravers sucking on pacifiers. But as with the launch of Nick Denton's Nike Blog, the launch of the "poopydiaperblog" does raise some questions: more ›

What Gothamist can't understand is why Six Apart doesn't have an office in NYC, which is quickly becoming the center of the blog world. For godsakes, there are rumors Jason Calacanis is moving back to town, Lockhart Steele is launching his super-secret Curbed blog on Monday, and Nick Denton has bought real estate here! With juice like that, the Big Apple deserves some more attention from the blog companies. When was the last time you saw someone from Blogger or MT eating at Gray's Papaya or passing out fliers you throw to the sidewalk immediately after getting them? Never! And we haven't seen Biz Stone at the McDonalds on West 4th in like four years! They are all over there in San Francisco, drinking their chai lattes and laughing at us. more ›

Greg Lindsay, Freelance Writer more ›

Gothamist also would like to thank: Jason Calacanis, Nick Denton, and Jeff Jarvis for a spirited (though less punchy than wished for, to be honest) discussion about the future of publishing blogs; Anil Dash, Paul Ford, and Meg Hourihan for enlightening us about what goes into designing blog publishing tools (less nerdy than it sounds, for those who missed it); and Felix Salmon, Lockhart Steele, and Choire Sicha ( and Jen) for being good punchlines. Yay! more ›

Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine more ›

Various personalities of the blogging world will collide at the NY Bloggers talk at the SoHo Apple Store this Monday, May 3. See Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis moderate/referee a discussion with web publishers Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis. ftrain's Paul Ford chats with Meg Hourihan, Anil Dash, and Jason Kottke about technology. And Felix Salmon will find out what kinds of medication Choire Sicha, Lockhart Steele, and Jen Chung must be on during the editors panel. Plus, Jake will be running around as the water boy. We can also promise question-and-answer time as well as some surprises. All in all, a great opportunity to see the bloggers you love (to hate?). Be there to be square. more ›

Wendy Mitchell, indieWIRE more ›

Overpaid comedic actors with serious depression issues aside, the real question is whether the competition will cause a pricing war, causing the fake profits to disappear (where will the Monopoly money go?). Gothamist believes that both companies will grind each other into the dust and end up getting acquired by a Japanese USB noodle cooler manufacturer, a subsidiary of Bratz, or an internet casino. more ›

Peter gives his first interview with Andrew Krucoff's Young Manhattanite Interview: "." more ›