Best Blogfights of 2006

If bloggers know how to do one thing really well, it's fight.

Blogging is driven largely by raw emotion. When a blogger goes on an opinionated tirade about one topic or another, it's often an honest emotional reaction rather than anything malicious. But whatever the motivation behind them, the heated missives often ignite furious debates, played out in public, complete with contradictory Alexa charts and Technorati rank data served up as evidence.

We prefer our action bare-knuckled, so we'll maintain that the best blog boxing matches are the ones fought with no empirical data -- just good old-fashioned name calling, hearsaying and muckraking.

Take off the gloves and get in the ring. These were the best (and bloodiest) blogfights of 2006.

Amanda Congdon vs. Andrew Baron
The videoblog Rocketboom imploded in July 2006 when the team behind the smash hit 3-minute daily tech news show split up. Perky hostess Amanda Congdon, in a now-infamous video message, inferred that she was fired by her partner Andrew Baron, saying, "I apparently have been un-boomed." Andrew shot back, denying that he had fired Amanda and insisting that she left on her own to pursue a career in Hollywood. Amanda then blamed the whole thing on Andrew and his poor communication skills. Half a year later, they're still arguing in public.

Winner: None. Andrew kept Rocketboom and found a new host (sexy Brit Joanne Colan). It's still popular, but the show lacks the spark of the original. Amanda has a new gig hosting a show at ABCNews.com that has yet to prove itself worthy of your next five minutes.

Kevin Rose vs. Jason Calacanis
Should social news sites pay the users who find and post the hottest links? Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg and the current king of social news, thinks it's a bad idea. Jason Calacanis, Weblogs, Inc. co-founder and blogging kingpin, liked the idea so much, he put it into practice at Netscape.com, which he re-fashioned as a social news site (and Digg clone). The philosophical debate remained mostly friendly until cash-for-post and gaming scandals tarnished Digg's credibility. Calacanis, jumping at the chance to salt Digg's wounds, put up a $100 reward for anyone who could unmask crooked Digg users. In the end, Calacanis quit AOL, Rose was humbled, and social news remains young and messy -- just the way we like it.

Winner: Rose. Because the last man standing wins.

Andrew Baron vs. Ze Frank
In October, the daily videoblogger Ze Frank produced an episode of his "The Show" questioning the download statistics of rival videoblog Rocketboom. Ze, with his characteristic dry sarcasm, accused Rocketboom's Andrew Baron of artificially inflating the daily viewership stats reported to the media -- and to advertisers. Baron defended his numbers in a post on his blog, slamming Ze in the process. A couple of independent news sources also chimed in on the debate and backed up Baron's traffic data. Ze Frank's rebuttal: Pageviews do not equal video views, so divide by six and you've got the Rocketboom's real viewership numbers.

Winner: Baron. Ze's "pageviews" argument doesn't apply to Rocketboom, which is distributed not only to website visitors, but also via subscription and to TiVo owners.

Dave Winer vs. Rogers Cadenhead
Back in early 2005, blogger and RSS guru Dave Winer hired programmer Rogers Cadenhead to port Winer's popular Weblogs.com site to a more robust platform. The project was a success -- Winer sold Weblogs.com to VeriSign for more than $2 million later that year -- and Winer struck a verbal agreement with Cadenhead to perform the same magic on another of Winer's web properties, Share My OPML. Winer paid Cadenhead $5,000 but the project fizzled when they couldn't agree on a formal contract. Then, in March 2006, Winer asked Cadenhead to delete the Share My OPML code and return the money." Cadenhead took it public, posting a letter he received from Winer's lawyer and calling Dave out. Winer responded with his own blog post slamming Cadenhead's ethics. The case was settled out of court; Cadenhead kept the money but deleted the code.

Winner: Cadenhead, who gets points for his innovative use of blogs to sway the court of public opinion. "I decided the best way to avoid court was to show Winer what it would be like to sue a blogger," he wrote.

Mike Arrington vs. Everybody
2006 started out pretty good for Michael Arrington, King of Web 2.0 Geeks. His blog, TechCrunch, was a bona fide runaway success, and it quickly became the go-to site for Silicon Valley startup news, industry gossip and insider information. But while every entrepreneur in the Valley was scrambling to touch the hem of his garment, Arrington came under attack. His editorial integrity was half-heartedly questioned by Jason Calacanis on an episode of "The Gillmor Gang" (fast forward to 21:30), but Arrington took the slight seriously. Then, Gawker's Valleywag accused Arrington of giving good reviews to companies he's invested in while ignoring their competitors. Arrington's vocal attacks against mainstream news outlets didn't win him much love, either. In the end, Arringtennui set in -- and Arrington entertained thoughts of ditching his kingdom and escaping to the hills. "I can't believe blogging hasn't driven me to drink yet," he wrote on his personal blog in December, in a post which has since been deleted. "The days of just meeting entrepreneurs and writing about their companies seem to be long gone, and politics has taken over nearly every aspect of what we do."

Winner: The blogosphere. Look into its eyes and it will turn you to stone.