I’m talking about intellectual diversity: the ways in which MCDM students and faculty approach and solve problems, skills and abilities applied in novel and meaningful ways, and outcomes that far exceed my admittedly high expectations. The student work from Fall 2011′s COM 546 Foundations course - Narratives & Networks in Digital Media – exemplifies both the challenges and the opportunities that true diversity can provide.

Course Background

As a foundational course to the MCDM program, Narratives & Networks in Digital Media had the unique position of orienting Cohort 11 students both to the theory and also the application of many elements they will encounter in the program. Taking a bit of their own advice, this course was newly revamped for 2011, and co-taught by MCDM Director Hanson Hosein and Dr. Malcolm Parks. The result for this first incarnation? Engaging discussions, relevant lectures and guest-speakers, and tangible takeaways for professionals and creatives, alike.

Students in this course witnessed the rise of the Occupy movement, the start of the upcoming nomination and election season, and the death of Steve Jobs. Meanwhile, they engaged with new tools and platforms, tried valiantly to “publish then filter,” and were brought together in new and sometimes challenging ways. Students were exposed to basic principles of digital media, and become comfortable with the central tenet of the MCDM: to effect trusted and persuasive communication, professionals need to develop a compelling narrative tied to strategic network engagement.

With this post, we would like to share some of their work, some of the process, and some of the core philosophies of the MCDM program.

Binaries

Human beings are wired for a binary world – but not the digital binary of 0s and 1s. Rather, as humans move through their world, they inherently seek out and identify similarities and differences with the people, places, and ideas they encounter. This identification process helps us to navigate the tricky waters of modern existence by leveraging our past experiences. While this process has become an evolutionary necessity, it can also keep us from broadening our horizons and hinder our development.

In the wild – or the wilds of the workplace – being able to quickly identify something, reference it against our experience, and decide a course of action is a matter of survival. In the classroom, however, facing these tensions head-on can mean the difference between going through the motions or finding a breakthrough moment. This course was designed to leverage this human tendency to both expose students to new views on topics they were familiar with while simultaneously including topics and tools they hadn’t seen before.

As with much of the MCDM, students were given a chance to apply these new experiences in both individual and group settings.

Go Team!

In this course, students were allowed to choose a topic that resonated with them for the individual assignments. This resulted in people pursuing topics they were passionate about – but left the instructional team with a significant challenge when it came to group work: How to go about creating groups that will have enough tension to thoroughly explore an issue, but retain enough cohesion to complete the assignment?

Group work is rarely easy – yet it has become a fixture of our modern lives. This “team” mentality abounds at the workplace and at home, but despite its prevalence, the challenges remain. Learning to work together – especially when there are significant differences amongst group members – is essential. These classroom experiences offer students a chance to take risks in the name of education, where the consequences are minimized and the feedback and engagement is maximized. They are actively encouraged to try things outside of their comfort zone, both individually and in groups.

The only caveat: if you fail, fail forward.

Applied Examination

For the group assignment, students were tasked with creating:

[a] ten-minute class group presentation that gets to the heart of your story strategy, and how you engaged networked community to spread the word. This presentation should ideally incorporate a short, sharable piece of multimedia content (visual or audible) that can serve as a demonstrable artifact for your overall project. You’ll also include examples from your blogs, strategy papers, and class content. You’ll be subject to a 10-20 minute class Q&A and discussion.

Not only would students need to address their own individual applications of the principles of digital media, but they would have to create a set of packaged, compelling, cross-project narratives exploring these issues more deeply. This is truly a difficult challenge, requiring students bring to bear not only the tools and techniques they had been exposed to over the course of the quarter, but also their own experiences, talents, and skills to approach this multi-faceted problem.

Group Selection

The formation of class groups is always a challenge for the instructor. On the one hand, do you simply let the students choose their own group, and let them live with their own choices? Or, should group selection be seen as a chance to encourage students to engage with new viewpoints, individuals, and challenges that they may not choose for themselves?

In this case, I was tasked with forming the groups. Each student had submitted a one paragraph description of their Action Idea – the central narrative thread the compels both their strategy and their content. I had a good sense of who each of the 48 students were, how they interacted, and had seen some of their work product.

The real challenge was creating consistent group sizes while knowing that student’s individual topics were set. On top of that, I wanted to create opportunities for students to work with some new ideas and new peers – i.e. not the people they sat next to every week in class. Diversity amongst group members – again, talking about intellectual diversity as well – was key. Instead of creating a group that would essentially say the same thing four different ways, I worked to form groups whose overarching themes may not be so readily apparent. While I knew that the students were capable, I was pleasantly surprised with the final products.

Outcomes

The “Family” group featured one student sharing her grandmother’s photos, memories, and thoughts on a blog called Upload Your Grandma. Another student was exploring life as a 20-something who had moved back home after college.  Yet others found themselves facing challenges as a modern-day father, a mother to her children and caretaker to her parents, and one living in “the real modern family.” These individual narratives combined to paint a very compelling picture of what it means to be a part of a family today.

Featuring one blog about eating gluten-free in Seattle, one about learning to cook, one featuring the MilkBread Monster, and one about bees, the “Conscientious Consumption” team put together a great take on what, how, and why we eat – or don’t – in America today:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another group of students combined nature, boxing, robots, and collaboration to help expose kids to leadership opportunities:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yet another group leveraged their diverse backgrounds and topics to tackle Taboo Conversations:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Moving Forward

Through a combination of theory and practice, familiar and new, individual and collective, MCDM students find new and exciting ways to see their world, tell the stories they find compelling, and build and grow the communities that will make a difference for us all. Just as our students continue to grow and evolve, so does the program. If you have any questions about the MCDM program, please don’t hesitate to reach out  by email, on Twitter, on Facebook, or by phone at (206)-543-6745.

Related Posts

• April 21, 2011 -- Greg Mortenson and Leadership Narrative Lies (12)
• December 20, 2011 -- The Power of People and Story (1)
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My wife and I got stuck in a terrible storm from Seattle to Tacoma, where we live, and in the boredom of our 10-hour “#snomg” commute I tweeted about everything that came to mind, with little filter. As a result, I flooded the stream on Twitter and gained some very minor celebrity (I mean, levels below even Kathy Griffin) during the event and a few days after.

This year, I had no plans to produce media around the impending storm, but then MCDM colleague Madeline Moy suggested in a Facebook thread that someone parody the “Sh*t Girls Say” meme with “Sh*t Seattle People Say When It Snows.” I found inspiration in it and got started. I filmed for a couple hours after work and dropped the first video that evening on YouTube, just to entertain my Facebook friends.

That first video took off. I thought it’d get 1,000 views at the most, but by the time I woke up the next morning I was well into five-figure views. I had plenty of shots left over, so I edited Part 2 and posted that, too. The two videos received many great comments in 48 hours, so I “replied” to them with Part 3 just earlier today, featuring many of the suggestions viewers provided.

So, how in the hell did this work out so well?

In digital media circles, we often talk about content and distribution models, but we rarely talk about newsworthiness — a more common discussion amongst PR flacks. Even great content — and I think I produced amateur content — needs a reason. To go viral, and I don’t think the “Sh*t Seattle People Say When It Snows” videos have hit that hockey stick growth quite yet, content needs more than a business reason or approval of an inner circle of friends. It has to appeal with reason and context for a broader audience to “get it.”

This year’s snow was my perfect storm, pun intended. I knew that a) people like to talk about the rare snow in Seattle, b) Seattlites have plenty of free time on snow days, and c) everyone likes a good laugh. Madeline’s request reminded me that there was a familiar and popular meme format to leverage.

It has been all Seattle snow jokes since.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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• November 21, 2008 -- Crowdsourcing: Name the New MCDM Center! (37)
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• February 25, 2008 -- Flip Video Vlog: Codecs and You! (25)
• November 9, 2010 -- Windows Phone 7: Could Mobile Gaming Be Microsoft’s Ticket? (21)

Beyond that, my love of data has proved to be infectious as our family holiday card this year included a QR code and web address to see “Twenty Eleven Graphically Visualized.” Yes, the MCDM has turned my entire family into data visualization nerds.

Exhibit A:

As a line graph, this is a relatively simple visualization, but we still managed to squeeze in a year’s worth of data points.

We decided on which points we would highlight in order to keep it simple and readable, while maximizing nerds points. For example, we nixed any data points that would run too similar of a line and make the graph hard to decipher, but including the number of Song of Ice and Fire books. Couple that with the fact that our holiday card included a QR code and a data visualization, and I think it’s clear why our Nerd Factor is at an all time high.

I’m sure all my fellow classmates have similar stories of how the MCDM has crept outside the classroom. We all expect it to show up in the workplace as we develop careers in digital media, but more and more I see little MCDM elements pop up in my daily life. I can only imagine how next year’s holiday card will turn out…

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ViKi.com, Singapore based startup, is making international TV and movies more accessible to world-wide audiences via crowd-sourced sub-titling - in approximately 160 languages. Yes, even Klingon.

ViKi acquires the rights to programs, uploads them to viki.com and then leverages the power of its translator community. These willing translators provide real-time subtitling of world TV and movies–from Japanese Anime to Spanish Novelas to Korean dramas to Egyptian movies to the latest from Bollywood as well as TV series from Hong Kong, Venezuela, Russia, Korea and the UK.

According to TechCrunch.com, ViKi is attracting around 8.5 million unique visitors with approximately 36 million visits per month, representing a four-fold increase over the past year.

Since coming out of Beta at the end of 2010, 150 million words have been subtitled in 160 languages by the ViKi community. The site features 5,000-plus hours of content with over 1 billion videos viewed.

ViKi leverages the power of its translator community who provide real-time subtitling of world TV and movies–from Japanese Anime to Spanish Novelas to Korean dramas to Egyptian movies and the latest from Bollywood as well as TV series from Hong Kong, Venezuela, Russia, Korea and the UK.

The company is working on adding more premium content, including a new licensing deal with BBC Worldwide. ViKi also launched an international TV series this year on Netflix with subtitles, and is expanding content on Hulu.

Translators subtitle shows into their native languages under a Creative Commons license agreement. This includes revision history and user-generated edits. The more popular programs show remarkable translation times. As CEO and founder Razmig Hovaghimian explained in a recent interview, popular shows can have up to 10 different language translations in the first few hours after the content is uploaded. The number of translations can double in the first 24 hours and increase up to 40 translations in three to four days from submission. Normally, around 500 people contribute to any given translation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The company is working on adding more premium content, including a new licensing deal with BBC Worldwide. ViKi also launched an international sub-titled TV series on Netflix and is expanding its content on Hulu. The company has also just debuted an iPhone app with an Android app soon to follow.

In an interview with the LA Times Caroline Hacker, a spokeswoman for ViKi, said ViKi’s current model is to license videos from producers and then share advertising revenue with them. There are plans to expand into fee-based video on demand in the near future.

Crowd-sourcing translation services such as ViKi means that language is not necessarily the barrier it once used to be for content creators. While those of us in the English-speaking world may be relatively unused to sub-titled content, it’s fair to say that many countries are not.

According to a press release from Viki, Playful Kiss, a Korean drama, reached US cable-sized audiences after an exclusive 10-day US run on ViKi, and then via Hulu.  ViKi licensed the content for other regions and the series was subtitled in over 40 languages – 20 of which were completed in the first 24 hours. “ViKi helped Playful Kiss find its audience” said Song Byung Joon, CEO of Group 8, the production studio behind the series.  “We’ve partnered with ViKi on several series, and are extremely happy to see how our old and new shows are generating significant new revenues for us from new markets.”

The appeal for content providers is obvious – they can leverage their product into markets all around the world creating new revenue streams at little to no extra cost.

The video streaming market is a crowded one. Everyone from individual content producers through to the large aggregators such itunes and youtube are looking to find ways to capture the largest share of the viewing public. For now, it seems that Viki may have found an interesting point of differentiation for itself – the ability to watch any program in your own language.

Investors seem to think this is a profitable leverage point for the company. In October 2011, ViKi announced $20m in new funding from investors around the world including SK Planet, a South Korean IT convergence platform provider, BBC Worldwide, and Greylock Partners a leading Silicon Valley private equity firm.

The question for the future is can Viki sustain its translation based competitive advantage? The key will be its ability to convince the leading content providers around the globe that it has a lock on a large translation community that will be loyal to its platform. Then it seems a no-brainer for producers seeking to leverage existing and new content into new markets at very little cost.

However, if the platform is easily replicable what’s to stop content providers or distributors from crowd-sourcing the translation themselves?

But perhaps crowd-sourcing translations on properly licensed content can help battle the video pirates and illegal down loader? At the very least, consumers should be more comfortable to stream or download free, high quality translated content without infringing on a producer’s copyright.

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That was the premise of Advanced Multimedia Storytelling: People and Story, the course I co-taught with Sarah Stuteville this past quarter; that a short film focused on an individual character’s experience is an extremely effective means to communicate a message, whether it’s about a product, a service or a broader trend in society.

The eight students in the class produced some powerful work, and sometimes got more than they bargained for:

Erika Takeuchi set out to produce a lighthearted profile of guide dog trainers, but when she met a trainer named Joseph Skillings, things took a turn for the serious. Joseph suffered severe head trauma a few years ago after trying to help a women being harassed at a bus stop. He took up puppy training as a way to deal with the lasting impacts of his accident.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The resulting story Defining Honor got the attention of King 5 news, which aired the story as part of their evening broadcast on Saturday.

Dominique Barni had a similar experience. Setting out to profile a local cheese monger in a promotional video for a restaurant owned by friends of hers, she soon found out her character has Asperger’s syndrome. The completed video is as much about a person learning to take advantage of what others might see as a disadvantage, as it is about cheese.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The class drew inspiration from some great character-driven documentaries of past decades, from 1972 Academy Award winner Marjoe, to 1994 classic Hoop Dreams, to this year’s Sundance Hit Buck.

The philosophy that focusing on just one person’s experience is often the best way to communicate a broader issue has been central to the international journalism we’ve done at the Common Language Project for the past 6 years. It just seemed instinctive that digging deep into the individual story of a girl struggling to access education in Pakistan or a single refugee who fled violence in Iraq would have more impact than hearing the voices of experts or superlative statistics.

A guest speaker in the class, Joy Portella, Communications Director at Mercy Corps, pointed out that this seemingly innate truth has recently been tested and confirmed by psychologists; in international aid campaigns, people are exponentially more likely to donate if the appeal they hear is about just one person they could be helping, than about two or three or ten thousand.

In “Rainy city girl and a global water problem” Rachel Boyer took this idea one step further. She focused her story about water access in Africa on her co-worker Abby, who traveled with her to Kenya mid-quarter to document the programs run by their employer World Vision.

Click here to view the embedded video.

By contrasting Abby’s daily routine in rainy Seattle with her experience in Africa, Rachel brought the issue home for viewers who might have had trouble relating to problems half a world away.

The class produced five other impressive videos which are embedded below, including Cathy Britt’s web documentary for KCTS 9 about acupuncture as an alternative to prescription pain medication, Gerrit Vyn’s video for the Cornell University newsletter about an alumni researching migratory shorebirds, Lara Underhill’s promotional video for local nonprofit Powerful Voices, Corey Murata’s film for the Shoreline Community College Library and Liz Hunter’s investigation into drug abuse among soldiers that will be used to promote a UW research project.

Sarah and I are looking forward to exploring the interactions between People and Story even further (and hopefully fostering a whole new batch of great projects) when we teach the class again next Fall.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Louis CK makes really funny jokes and he wants you–even if you are broke, especially if you are broke—to be able to laugh at him. His newest venture, Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theatre is a full-length show available to download for $5. I just paid $19.99 for Chris Rock’s “Kill the Messenger” on iTunes, where full-length stand-up routines range in price from $4.99 to over $20. But here’s the thing—at this point we know that artists and comedians are making a pittance selling product through venues like iTunes and getting even less though streaming websites like Spotify and Last.fm. So Louis CK, ever the innovator, decided to take matters into his own hands and start selling his work independently.

Louis CK is a hard working guy who understands his fans are hardworking (or unemployed) people. So to maximize profit on his side and minimize cost on ours, he figured out a way to sell us Live at the Beacon at a fraction of what it would cost had he used a production company. The actual show cost $170,000, but was covered almost entirely by ticket sales at the actual live performances. He paid for filming out of pocket and did his own video editing and embedded virtually no DRM protections on the finished video. Marketing was mainly word of mouth, and 12 hours after it was released, Louis CK had made back his money.

Predictably, the show is “all over torrent sites” but it doesn’t matter. Four days after the release, he had sold over $500,000 worth of downloads, with a net profit of about $200,000. Granted, in his own words, this is less than Louis CK would have been paid by a production company to release a similar product—but that product would have cost more and been distributed less, both in the US and internationally. This way, anyone with an Internet connection and beer money can spend an hour laughing at Louis CK—and a few moments thanking him.

Musicians (Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails) have been experimenting with alternative distribution methods since Napster and similar file sharing programs rocked the industry a decade ago.  Contemporary authors (including MCDM Director Hanson Hosein) have utilized online publishing methods in lieu of the traditional publishing company in order to keep production costs low, release schedules short and profits in pocket.  Customers can potentially benefit from these lower upfront costs in the marketplace.

Actually, this type of experiment is not exactly a departure for CK, who has been granted almost complete creative freedom for his FX comedy “Louis.”  According to online news source Minnpost, The show costs under $300,000 to make, is shot on a digital camera and edited on Louis’ Mac. How Louis works is certainly risky, but could inspire other artists and comedians to cut out the layers of production and legal issues utilizing new media tools and new models of production.

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Pohl is a digital storyteller. He is fascinated by the mystery of communication and all of its moving parts. Until now, much of his time was spent locked in a basement editing on the post side of production for Victory Studios, a production house here in Seattle.

I recently sat down with the 30-year-old director at a Starbucks in Phinney Ridge. When I walked up to introduce myself, Pohl had already settled into a table, sipping an Americano as he thumbed the pages of Stephen King’s “Danse Macabre.”

Although Pohl enjoys the editing process, his real ambition is directing, high-end imagery and motion graphics.

Three years ago Pohl began to scribble story ideas on napkins and used stacks of paper–paper that he eventually would assemble into a script for his first feature film, “Divination.”

During that time Pohl found a new mentor, Thomas Lee Wright.  Wright is best known for his original screenplay “New Jack City” and is a former story editor at Walt Disney and Columbia Pictures, before serving as a creative executive at Paramount Pictures. Wright took Pohl and “Divination” under his wing.

“I’ve been locked in front of a computer,” Pohl said. “For two years I’ve sort of dumbed myself down. He [Wright] sensed that I’ve become too visual and did not incorporate enough narrative into my work. He advised me to get back into books and write more.”

Pohl quit his day job to start his own business, Bad Pixel (www.bad-pixel.com). He began to read Brian McDonald’s “Invisible Ink” and found his inspiration for “Divination.”

“Divination” explores interpersonal conflict in a supernatural realm. Conflicts like dealing with fear, nightmares and a tortured relationship. Themes, which Pohl believes will effectively resonate with his audience.

“To me, the key element in storytelling is putting the audience in a place where they can see themselves in the story,” Pohl said. “Either the leads are very relatable, or there are common situations that are universal to everyone – situations the audience can easily relate to.”

Pohl is very much like the main character, Jason, in “Divination.” He’s characteristically antsy, worrisome, pensive – not very smooth. Most of the time he is very content pecking away at his projects and not interacting with people.

However, he is also ambitious and has discovered the power of networks.

“Everything flows through people,” Pohl said. “The more people you mingle with, the more people you meet and are friends with the better rounded you are. For me, the most consistent people I know are well connected and they are a pleasure to hang with.”

There are two things Pohl is trying to accomplish in his career. The first thing Pohl wants, he also considers a pipe dream or a very expensive hobby,; Pohl wants to make full-length feature films that are successful enough to pay the bills. The second and more tangible goal is to continue producing high-end motion graphics and visual effects. Pohl is currently doing this as a freelancer and works project by project.

“I love both and in “Divination” I was able to do both,” Pohl said. “It was immensely satisfying. It was a huge collaboration. I was able to push pixels around in a basement, work with actors and write a script. It was a merge of two loves.”

Pohl is capturing an audience by telling stories that feel real to him — stories that are giving him a new perspective.

So far It seems to be working.

Pohl has three distribution offers on the table for “Divination” and is working on making this a sustainable business model.

Ben Pohl’s Tools:

Final Draft, After Effects, Panasonic P2 Camera, Pen, Tons of Paper, Phone and MacBook Pro

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Online video syndication services have been around for several years and are helping many businesses, advertising agencies and producers transition from paid television ads to paid online video ads. While many of these services provide legitimate ways of attracting consumers to the videos, others have developed ways of short-cutting the process to quickly increase view counts and other forms of engagement.

Video view seeding has been around nearly as long as online video. With the newfound success of brands using online video for advertising, seeding video views has become much more popular. One of the primary reasons for doing this is search engine optimization or SEO. Videos with higher views and engagement rates rank much higher in search engine results. This in turn motivates marketers and producers to artificially increase these numbers in the beginning to earn more organic engagement over the long run

The snag with online video is sites like YouTube have millions of videos uploaded everyday ,so unless you pay to increase your view count, your video can get lost and go unviewed. By rapidly increasing the view count using various techniques, marketers and producers are able to get their video off the ground and give it a better chance of going “viral”.

The cost of buying video views, comments and likes
While doing a simple Google search you will likely find many fancy websites offering a wide range of syndication packages. One website, WebVideoPromoters.com, offers 100,000 views for $1,000 or 10,000 subscribers for $2,800 and provides dozens of examples of well known brands they’ve worked with. Another site, BuyYouTubeViews.net, advertises geolocation targeted views as well as volume pricing for agencies.

While these may seem like excellent deals, things break down when you view their FAQ section to find out how the service actually works:

“Its a combination of being your promotions manager, a little bit of magic, and a whole lotta of hustling… actually it’s pretty complex involving sharing it out to other YouTubers, server technology, and more. But in all honesty, its a trade secret but you’ll love the results!” (webvideopromoters.com)

It really doesn’t take much to uncover some shady practices disguised as “server technology” and “trade secrets” yet because there is little if any regulation, many marketers and producers are willing to look the other way if they are able to save a significant amount of money.

In some cases, the companies that provide very little information online are not actually hiding anything and in fact provide legitimate ways of promoting videos through influencer outreach campaigns and other well-known industry practices. These industry leaders provide multiple reporting metrics including how much of the video was viewed and where it was embedded. They also have the power to target very specific demographics.

What counts as a view? Is it changing?
In 2008 fans of Avril Lavigne attempted to bump her up to the top ranked YouTube video spot using an autoplaying and auto-refreshing embedded video player that added one pageview every 15 seconds. (Wired, 2008) Several weeks later YouTube stopped counting autoplays.

The table below provides a list of video hosting sites and what counts as a view:

Gaming the system
Currently there are at least three distinct methods being used to rapidly increase engagement stats. While all of these methods aren’t necessarily illegal, they do present ethical issues that should be addressed before they cause further harm to the industry.

Paid to view
Sites such as Paid2YouTube.com advertise services that allow YouTube videos to reach thousands of viewers. How do they work? Paid2YouTube pays 0.01 per view, 0.10 per comment, and 0.35 per subscription along with other referral based earning opportunities. Viewers surf through pages of embedded videos and are paid accordingly for each video they engage without ever leaving the Paid2YouTube site.

There are lots of sites offering automating computing scripts to game this method therefore viewers may not even be looking at their computer while these videos are playing. Not to mention that for advertisers, the idea that you’d pay people to watch your video runs counter to what you’re trying to do; you want them paying you!

Another potential way for viewers to be paid to view is through social games. According to an article in VideoNuze, a company called Jun Group has been a pioneer in this emerging space offering “virtual currency” in return for opt-in video views on major brands’ online video ads. (Richmond, 2011) Jun Group works with social game developers to offer targeted syndication that uses an embedded player. (Richmond, 2011) According to Jun Group’s CEO, gamers are responding positively with 90-95% completion rate and 3-5% engagement rates. Jun Group may actually be one of the more legitimate services as they promise “no auto-plays, pop-ups or other view-inflating tricks.” (Richmond, 2011) Depending on how these sites are run, there many be several related legal issues such as complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA).

Stream Fraud
According to Jim Louderback, an outspoken voice on this issue, Internet video has an ethics problem called “stream fraud” which he describes as a company reporting to an advertiser that a video was played when the video was not actually viewed. Louderback estimates in 2010 that stream fraud could have accounted for as much as 30% or more of paid views. (Louderback, 2010)

In some instances these videos can’t actually be stopped and play below the fold on the page with the sound turned off so the person viewing the page might not actually see or hear it at all.

Black pixel markets
Tod Sacerdoti, an author for Media Post’s Online Video Insider blog describes the syndicated black market as a “small number of video syndication firms, ad networks and tier-three publishers” that use invisible 1×1 pixel autoplayers hidden behind a banner ad with the sound turned off. (2010) This appears to be one of the most fraudulent of the three categories described.

Laws and Regulation
Many of the illegitimate practices associated with video syndication fall under case law and the U.S. Code. Similar to the current Google Adwords case, charging customers for video view impressions and using a group of incentivized viewers that regularly click on hundreds of videos to fill those impressions is fraudulent. While there may be some truth to the old adage – buyer beware, some of the companies such as Usocial use FAQs and terms of service agreements that are extremely hard to decipher.

There is nothing illegal about using a “vast network of partners”, but when you drill down and consider that these “partners” are likely incentivized for their actions and might view multiple ads simultaneously to earn more money, it becomes clear that conversion rates will remain low or nonexistent. What you’re really doing paying people to ignore your video, leave fake comments or to subscribe to your channel and then never watch it.

What should be done to stop this madness?
There will always be fly-by-night companies that bend and twist the rules to make a quick buck, whether it’s click fraud or cybersquatting, making it all the more important for legitimate companies to protect themselves. Creating strict industry standards and providing transparency around services and metrics is likely the best way for video syndication companies to avoid government oversight. In order to curtail fraudulent practices like stream fraud, marketers and producers need to educate themselves as to the risks of working with companies that hide under “trade secrets” and be willing to pay a fair price for a legitimate service.

We want to hear from you… Does your business pay for video syndication services? How do you decipher the legitimate services from the fraudulent ones? Is a video’s view count an important factor in determining whether or not you will share it?

This piece was originally written as a research paper for Theresa Simpson’s U.S. Digital Media Law and Policy course at the University of Washington.

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