Update: Funny… someone DUGG this story.
Update2: Yes, going indie is also a great choice for Amanda. If she has the bank she could just hire a writer or two part time, as well as one or two tech people, and just rock this out on her own. Of course, Netscape has 12M uniques a month and would expose Amanda to 40-50x the number of folks she currently has–while letting her keep ownership of her videos.

Amanda,

I see it is true you’ve left RocketBoom.

You’re a great talent, everyone knows that, and you’re gonna get a ton of offers over the next couple of days. I’d like to give you some unsolicited advice and make you an offer as well. Above all else you need to own the rights to your work. Right now all of your archives on RocketBoom.com are not yours (I think you own 49% of them right). Someone else is going to make 51% of that money for all time and they own your work, so you have to go get their permission to use it. That’s not right for you at this point (it was OK a year ago when, frankly, you were not a big name like you are now).

You’re on the top of the talent pool on the Web and you should get compensated for what you’ve done. You don’t have a huge window of opportunity–you need to act now and you should get paid *now*. This is what I told Peter when I recruited him from Gizmodo, Elizabeth when I tried to (and failed) recruit her from Gawker, and this is the same advice I told Scoble months ago before he left Microsoft (he says my discussion with him helped him make the jump).

When you’re the talent you build brand equity, you cash in on that brand and then you take it to the next level. You are at that very moment right now.. you need to make the jump to the next level.

So, my offer to you is do your daily report for Netscape and we’ll pay you whatever you need to get paid AND you can own all of the rights to your video forever (just give us like a six month exclusive window on Netscape). We will set you up with our kick-ass studios, get you an office, and I’ve got a full-time video editor at your disposal (i.e. they can go with you anywhere). Also, we’ll set up a travel budget so you can go cover whatever stories you want.

You’re a star baby… it’s time to be treated like one. Ask the other stars who work with me how I treat my talent and I think they’ll all tell you that I fight and fight for my people like a rabid dog. (sort of like the Ari/E combo on Entourage, if you will).

You know where I’m at… hit me if you’re interested.

best regards,

Jason

PS – At the very least you can print this offer out and use it as leverage against some other offers coming in. Frankly, you might want to consider pulling a page from your partners playbook and doing an EBAY auction for your services. Rock on!

PSS – If you are moving to LA we have a HUGE and amazing studio we’re building in the heart of Beverly Hills that will just totally knock your socks off (it’s in the old Dreamworks SKG building on Maple).