hijacking of YouTube

how salesmen hijacked youtube
TODAY Weekend • June 28, 2008— The Daily Telegraph

AS TIME-WASTING opportunities go, no one in history has come up with anything to match the video-sharing site YouTube.
Every day starts the same: switch on the computer, check the email inbox, then follow the links to YouTube that have been sent by various correspondents eager to share their discoveries. And already the morning is drifting away in a blur of sneezing pandas, popcorn cooked by mobile phones, and comedy songs about Ben Affleck’s love life. And the thing is, long before you have clocked on to what is happening, you are being manoeuvred into position by somebody trying to sell you something.
Very little of the traffic on YouTube gets there by accident. Take, for instance, the footage of an office rageincident that has been circulating for the past couple of weeks. Half a dozen times invitations to view it have pinged into my inbox, usually appended to the message: “Haven’t we all felt like this at some point?” Silent, in black and white, apparently shot by CCTV cameras, the film opens on a typical office scene. Nothing much is happening as people go about their business. Then, a man approaches another at his workstation. Words are exchanged. Perhaps there is a dispute about the amount of time spent logged on to YouTube. Suddenly one of the men throws a bunch of papers at his colleague, then picks up his computer terminal and hurls it at him. The assaulted man backs off, and immediately everyone else in the office is looking over their space dividers, alarmed. Now he has started, it is clear the man is not going to stop. He throws equipment around, he jumps on desks and thrashes about. For a moment he leaves the office, but returns with a sledgehammer and begins serious demolition. The remaining computers, the walls, everything gets battered. Eventually, a security guard subdues him. It is magnificent, you think, as you copy the link to send it on; what a liberating piece of wish fulfilment. Except it is entirely faked. Filmed by the director Timur Bekmambetov, it is a promotional piece for his new movie Wanted, a silly bit of superhero fluff starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy.

Mr Bekmambetov has simply taken advantage of what many now realise is the best way to market a product. It is word of mouth for the computer generation, cheap, efficient and imbued with the value of personal recommendation.

Much of YouTube’s content has been hijacked in this way, by those keen to sell you something. Particularly politicians. The fight for the Democratic nomination was largely conducted here, as rooms full of clever young graduates laboured to produce apparently spontaneous expressions of support for their candidate which they could release, virus-like, into the public domain.

What makes YouTube so subversive is that, these days, not only are we wasting endless time but in every second of it we are being manipulated.

A longer version of this commentary first appeared in The Daily Telegraph.

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coming soon: youtube facelifts
Weekend • June 28, 2008— The New York Times News Service

NEW YORK — Last September,Ms Michelle Wilder left Dr Emil W Chynn of Park Avenue Laser armed with the usual postoperative fare: eyedrops, sunglasses and a pair of prescription-free contact lenses. And oh, yes: a DVD of her Lasek surgery, so she could experience from the confines of her own home the joy of watching the doctor scrape her eyeballs. Her viewing pleasure was notDr Chynn’s only concern. He hoped Ms Wilder would be so thrilled with her results that she would post the10-minute video on YouTube, along with his credentials, a link to his website, and a rave review. As an incentive, Dr Chynn offered either a free Botox injection worth US$400 ($545) or a US$100 discount on the US$5,000 Lasek operation, which, unlike Lasik, doesn’t entail cutting a flap in the cornea. “I thought it was a little odd, because I was wondering ‘Who wants to see my surgery?’ ” said Ms Wilder, 25, a Manhattan accountant. “But then I thought, ‘Well, it’s just my eye, you can’t see anything else about me, so of course I’ll post it.’ ” Why not take a discount, she reasoned. While thanking patients for endorsements with financial discounts or free Botox is legal, videos endorsing cosmetic procedures, postedin sites like Yahoo and YouTube, have raised concerns. Doctors – and patients – have taken to online video postings with gusto. Type in the word “Botox” on YouTube and around 2,400 videos pop up. “Breast augmentation” garners over 2,000; “Lasik” around 2,000 videos. The videos featuring needles piercing furrowed brows and scalpels slicing are both disturbing and fascinating. Not all show gore. Some aspire to be mini-documentaries with narrative arcs: A Day in the Life of Dr X and His Formerly Big-Nosed Small-Breasted Ecstatic Client. All 15 doctors interviewed for this article didn’t see anything ethicallyunsound about “thank you” rebates and discounts in return for such endorsement videos, but some medical ethicists are not so sure. “It’s disappointing to see commercialism creeping into what should be a very altruistic profession,” said bioethics professor Ruth Fischbach, the director of the Centre for Bioethics at Columbia University. “If you agree to give your testimonial on YouTube, will that doctor treat you better when you come back than someone else who has refused to do this?” Most marketing videos don’t announce that patients are compensated. Take Ms Jiffy Reed, who posed for a tribute on YouTube about Dr Daniel Noor, a New York-based dentist who straightened her smile with invisible braces. “I was so happy, I would have done anything,” Ms Reed said. What the video doesn’t mention is that her physician whitened her teeth at no charge; it usually costs about US$700.
One dissatisfied patient, who asked to remain anonymous because he is still undergoing treatment for an operation he had done about six months ago, said: “Regardless of whether I’m happy – that’s not going to stop me from posting. It’s money in my pocket.” He isn’t satisfied with his results, but he hasn’t taken down his glowing endorsement.