Until last Friday, Rocketboom, a cheery three-minute Web video news broadcast anchored by geek hottie Amanda Congdon, was the poster child for the Next Big Thing: video blogging, or "vlogging", as some lamentably insist on calling it. Programmed by 20-something Congdon and her 35-year-old partner Andrew Baron out of Baron's Manhattan apartment, the vlog became an instant hit online, as well as a conversational reference point for media execs in New York and Los Angeles who have their eyes on the future. Rocketboom had also started to draw interest from advertisers. But there's some old-fashioned trouble in videoblog paradise, as Baron and Congdon have split up in a particularly public, new-media way.

Congdon broke the news of the split yesterday in a plaintive video posting at her new, hastily assembled site, Amanda UnBoomed. Although she claims in the video that Baron was no longer willing to work with her, it seems Baron, who owns 51 percent of the venture to Congdon's 49 percent stake, was taken by surprise by both his partner's abrupt departure, and her video. He has since said so in at least one interview, leaving a gossip-hungry blogosphere to bicker over the assignment of blame.

Meanwhile, opportunistic blog-mogul-turned-AOL-exec Jason Calacanis has leapt into the fray, publicly offering Congdon a job at the relaunched Netscape.com while waxing boosterish with some unsolicited "you're a star, you deserve to get paid" advice.

On the Rocketboom home page, dark since Friday, Baron generously allows that Congdon will be missed "sorely," but adds "Rocketboom goes on."

No doubt. And so too will the rise and fall of Web video celebrity, just as it always has in every other media.