NICK DOUGLAS — Good deals are obvious. Great deals are not. News Corp's $580-million purchase of MySpace was "Murdoch's Folly" no more when Google paid $900 million to power MySpace search. In that spirit, here are the top nine business moves from 2006 that don't make sense — at first. Below, the video that started Deal #1.

By Megan McCarthy

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.)

• Is it that big a deal that Netflix offered a million-dollar bounty for anyone who improves its movie recommendation engine by 10%? Wait, how do you even measure the accuracy of movie recommendations? Who cares, the media's eating it up as if they get a finder's fee. (If you win this contest after reading it on Valleywag, you do owe us a finder's fee: a lifetime subscription to "Netflix: Porn Edition." [NY Times]

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:

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.

Take a look at this clip from MSNBC's article about Amanda Congdon, who recently left Andrew Baron's show Rocketboom to go on a media spree:

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.

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.

Rocketboom, the world's most popular video blog, enters its third post-Amanda-Congdon day with no new episode, despite producer Andy Baron promising one at 9 AM Eastern Time. Well, look at the clock. I'll keep asking until I get an answer: Andy, since you do all the work on the show, switching anchors should be no big deal, right?

Say hi to Joanne (not Joanna) Colan, the new host of Rocketboom. The vlogger just opened her blog at JoanneColan.net.

Magical Wednesday Update: Rocketboom still a dud, bloggers running out of headline puns. (But this post is still worth reading.)

Escalating his battle with exiting host Amanda Congdon, Rocketboom producer Andy Baron blogged that he does nearly all the work on the popular video blog. "I have Produced every single episode," he says. "I have found/picked over 90% of all of the stories that we have ever used." He even takes credit for Amanda's frantic chair spins and head bobs that freaked out so many viewers.

After Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon took her spat with producer Andrew Baron public on her blog, Andrew never posted a reply on his blog. Instead, he talked about it at a conference.

It only took Rocketboom producer Andrew Baron a week to replace host Amanda Congdon. And, as Amanda accused, he's so old media — new anchor Joanna Colan is an ex-MTV Europe VJ. Huffington Post's media blog, Eat the Press, reports the story but admits that Andy won't confirm the hire. He does confirm that Rocketboom goes back on the air Monday.

The New York Times gets new quotes from Amanda Congdon after the Rocketboom vlog anchor split with founding producer Andrew Baron over escalating arguments about the show's direction. Now that Rocketboom is rich and famous, Andrew wanted his power back and tried to muscle Amanda out of her 49% share of the show — which is, like, so last decade.

I am as tired of Rocketboom split-up news as you are.