Nothing to do with the audio/video - it was plain out unfunny . “Brilliant”? I think not. Pathetic more like it.
Rocketboom: new and improved
Today’s Rocketboom is brilliant. I think Andrew is doing a great job of handling the transition from Amanda to Joanne.
After reading the comments, it’s clear that there are a lot people who don’t agree. They’re trying to find any reason to proclaim the death of Rocketboom. In this case, it’s the degraded audio and video quality of this episode. Never mind the fact that it was intentional. (I’m guessing these people wouldn’t think much of Guided by Voices or Sebadoh, either. Their loss.)
This reminds me of the howls of the bad old Mac users when OS X first arrived. If it were up to them, we’d still be using that old, decrepit OS rather than the powerful, dependable OS everyone has grown to love. (Let me take this opportunity to blow my own horn. I loved OS X from the beginning. I started using it as my primary OS the day it came out.)
7 Comments 
A lot of people were complaining about the audio and video, which is a totally bogus criticism. If you just found it unfunny, that’s fine. But I have to take your opinion with a grain of salt, considering that Mr. Bean image you have on your site.
[...] It’s so easy to criticize someone else’s creation when you’re judging it with your own criteria. But it’s also important to understand the context in which the thing was created. [...]
I think Mr Bean pathetic also.
Why do you have him on your site?
I thought that Friday’s Tiki Bar collaboration was a great piece of work but it did NOT win me over. I watched the first two shows but I have since resolved to abstain from Rocketboom until I see how things shake out between Amanda and Baron. There is more to this than just Amanda. It’s also about choosing who I do business with, and who I give my business to. When I become aware that a business is behaving in ways that I believe are unethical, I choose not to do business with them whenever I have the freedom to exercise that choice.
Even though I don’t pay cash for Rocketboom with a subscription I pay with my eyes and my time, which they have leveraged to sell advertising. To me there is a principle involved here that means more to me than the few minutes of entertainment I used to get every day.
It seems to me at this point Amanda can likely never go back to her former role as the “faceâ€? of Rocketboom however I hope the viewers can convince the 51% majority of Rocketboom shareholder’s to deal with Amanda fairly. I think he would honor his contractual obligation to Amanda even if only for good public relations and to protect his financial interest.
For everyone who thinks what happened to Amanda sucked, all I can say is think about the times you were screwed by your boss or your company, or a store you bought from. Giving up three minutes of Rocketboom is a no brainier. It’s easy. Think of it as web voting.
I know this won’t get seen by Jamie, but I should respond.
Jamie, everything you’re saying is predicated on the notion that Amanda’s story is the truth. Don’t you think it’s possible that she might be telling the story in such a way as to gain sympathy? I’ve heard both sides of the story, and they can’t both be completely true. My guess is that it’s somewhere in the middle. And it’s messy.