THIS IS NOT ABOUT CHRIS CROCKER

for those of you unfamiliar with new media vocabulary, chris crocker's "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!" youtube is a prime example of a viral video. this version of the video, featured on the official "itschriscrocker" channel, has received over 16 million hits -- not to mention a lot of airtime on major news networks and a slew of parodies. crocker's emotional video even landed "him" his own reality television series and a pretty legitimate wikipedia entry.

that said, a friend of mine recently linked me to this article on marketing strategies for viral videos. this dude dan ackerman-greenberg goes on (...and on...) about various techniques that he and his viral video marketing company employ to get a bigger number of hits on their clients' vids. as with most of the people who commented, i was a little shocked (and kinda disgusted) with most of the article, but the poor greenberg guy released a follow-up ("flip-flopper") article a few days later. you can check it out here. greenberg's tone changes quite a bit between the two, but he maintains that his initial post was merely intended to pull back the curtain on what's up with youtube. nevertheless, it does change the way i think about internet superstars such as crocker, as well as raise questions about ethics and, perhaps, our (blind) faith in new media.

-anh