Familiar with Paltalk? Of course you are! It's

BusinessWeek:

• Yep, it's true: Time cuts its rate base, tries to convince advertisers that people pass issues on to friends. Be real, Stengel: Those nursing homes only get one copy each week. [NYT]
  

You can disdain the following jerks, sellouts, and creeps who made the world worse this weekend — but don't let anyone know you're really just jealous.

A marketing maven e-mails in from a Future of PR conference, where he's listening to Andrew Baron, the producer of online news show Rocketboom avoid mentioning his former host, the famously pretty Amanda Congdon, who quit this year, sparking an embarrassing public feud with Andrew. (The two have threatened each other with legal action over Amanda's disputed share of 49% of the show. Meanwhile, the chattering class has wondered which would suffer more from the breakup.)

And here's the full-court-press Good experience at last. The philanthropically minded mag venture celebrated its birth last night at Chelsea's Emergency Arts, and Gawker was there, and there. But wherever there is an open bar and tragically vulnerable boldface names, you can surely find Intern in Perpetuity Neel Shah. After the jump, enjoy one of Neel's trademark productions of fearless investigatory reportage, coupled with the cheerfully impolitic photography of Jennifer Snow. You got more Al Gore, more Matthew Modine, and even a few cupsful of Amanda Congdon, plus a gaggle of other well-meaning New York media mandarins.

• Phone fraud offender Hewlett-Packard takes another giant leap towards becoming even more of the class bully, this time with news that they actually conducted feasibility studies to figure out how to plant spies in news bureaus. To be continued tomorrow. Don't worry, by then we'll find out the government was involved in the conspiracy. [NY Times]

How would you describe former Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon in this picture? Is she really passionate about driving cross-country on some environmentalist-sponsored road trip that landed her in Good magazine? Or is she relatively unemployed and desperate for the world not to forget that she's got a decent rack? To decide, let's look at some of quotes from her latest video blog entry:

Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron hasn't given up the fight with recently fired-or-quit news anchor Amanda Congdon over the 49% stake she claims to still hold in the popular video blog (earlier coverage here). In fact, a week ago (I know, we are so late to this), Drew said he's taking her to court. In his blog, Drew says:

We just received a copy of Good, the new magazine on how to give away your money. There's too much to digest all at once, but we were drawn to the portrait of former Rocketboom (remember July?) anchor Amanda Congdon. What especially moved us was the pullquote:

The star has gone, the glamour's worn thin, and Rocketboom's former vlog host is already fading from memory after her public fight with her producer Andrew Baron (scroll through this page for background). In celebration of Amanda Congdon's rapidly ticking 14th minute of her 15 minutes of fame, Valleywag presents "Don't You Vlog Me, Baby."

Just like Christmas in July, New Year predictions deserve a mid-year refresher — especially since Valleywag wasn't here for New Year's. Valleywag predicts that by the end of 2006:

Everyone's acting like Rocketboom's producer and ex-host have gone their separate ways, as if the fight is over. But it's just about to begin.

It is unfair to pit a former host and current host of a show against one another in some kind of popularity contest, especially when the current host has nothing to do with the fight that ended with the former host's exit.

Sure, the former Rocketboom host is only interviewed in TIME's online version, not its print edition. But bloggers will forget that and make a big deal about this. And it is a big deal, since this was the third interview with Amanda Congdon published last night.

• Om Malik, who believes companies don't do anything once, polls his readers: Who will Wired buy next? [GigaOM]

Rocketboom's former host is still telling her side of the story to the media. It's all starting to look a little mean, since her former partner Andrew Baron offered an olive branch this morning on Rocketboom.

So after some minor delays, "interim host" Joanne Colan has her Rocketboom debut. A tipster familiar with her body of work correctly describes Colan as "no balloon smuggler" in comparison to former host Amanda Congdon (herself the subject of a gentle chat-job from Time.com today). She does, however, have a certain E! level of professional broadcasting polish that Congdon lacked. And she even does accents! Beyond that, it's the usual routine of taking an Internet joke and re-enacting it in real life, which works just as tepidly well regardless of the chick doing the tittering.

The nation's hottest video blog is back, and it's snappy. Rocketboom interim host Joanne Colan (pictured here holding a symbol for triumph) displays the polish and ease that many viewers felt long-time host Amanda Congdon lacked.

It's been official policy at Valleywag to allude to Amanda Congdon's breasts without blaming them for her stardom. But every other blogger and reporter says that they're the reason Andrew Baron chose her to host his video blog, Rocketboom.