A couple of weeks ago, I posted (what I believed to be) a shiny-new Viral Video, Carol of the Sith Lord. It featured Darth Vader directing a flash mob singing “Carol of the Bells.” We here at the Flip had been waiting to find a viral video in its infancy, to track the progress, and animate the YouTube locational popularity tracker. Hooray for data visualization!

Best laid plans…

Not long after I posted the video, a gentleman called choirx corrected my post in the comments section. He had been involved in the production, and questioned the numbers that YouTube provided. At about that same time, I realized that the numbers hadn’t gone up. At all. For three days. So I did a little investigation.

Apparently, Google (who owns YouTube) places a hold on a video’s hit counter when it goes viral. They do this to maintain accuracy–the powers-that-be check to make sure that the hits coming in are valid, and not automated, preventing unsavory characters from upping their own counts.

While I applaud YouTube for their dedication to honesty, I do wish that I could have given you the data that I promised. Instead, look for part two (later today), where I’ll give you the “best of” the Flip’s Viral Videos of 2011.

By the by, Carol of the Sith Lord ended up with 478,000 views. In case you were curious.

When Jane McGonigal suffered a serious brain injury in 2009, it inspired her to create a game called “SuperBetter” to help heal herself.

Recently I heard McGonigal speaking about the game and her journey on the radio, and I was intrigued. McGonigal has partnered with radio producer and  media-blogger Alex Goldman in a unique media campaign with the radio show “On the Media.”

Goldman, a producer at On the Media, was injured in a car accident last spring. He has been playing “SuperBetter” as a part of his recovery. I too had a severe bike accident earlier this year and have been dealing with the lingering effects of a serious concussion.

My brain has recovered from the accident, but it has taken months. Initially, I couldn’t imagine how a game could have sped up my healing process, but I wanted to take a closer look.

Read more…

Twenty Twelve heralds my last two quarters as an MCDM student and in the last few years I’ve seen a few changes in my life as a result of my time spent in this program. One major change would be increased interest in all things data related. My Google Reader is full of data and infographic blogs (such as Information is Beautiful and FlowingData), I spent an afternoon learning from Edward Tufte, I’ve improved my own data visualization skills working in Adobe Illustrator and I’ve been plotting ways for how I can meet the one and only Hans Rosling.

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.

Read more…

“Just Wow.”

That’s the name of the blog post that was the inspiration for this week’s Viral Video. The blog post was hugely viral in the gaming and PR/Marketing communities, for good reason: it was a perfect storm of funny, appalling, and just plain crazy.

But wait–there’s more! Once the wrath of Teh Interwebs was invoked, people went digging into the antagonist’s alleged penchant for steroids and domestic violence, his previous PR gaffes, and his impersonation of others in the name of damage control. Eventually, he apologized with ill grace, both to the customer and to the owner of penny arcade.

Not that that will help him at this point.

(warning: there is a bit of swearing in the video)

2011 was a banner year at Flip the Media.  Over the last twelve months we have grown into an informative, timely and thought provoking daily journal. Student run, Flip’s success is based on the content that MCDM students enrolled in the Flip independent study provide to readers every week on a daily basis. Most of our content comes from the students and faculty in the Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) program and Flip the Media reflects the best aspects of that program’s scholarship and entrepreneurialism.

Read more…

If you’re one of the few people who don’t live on Facebook 16 hours a day, you may still be catching up on its list of most shared articles of the year.

No. 33 on the list, ahead of CNN’s story about the death of Steve Jobs, is a MoneyTalksNews article titled “Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know.” Published on Yahoo Finance, the article was inspired by a similar Huffington Post list of 20 things that became obsolete this decade.

As we get ready to wrap up 2011 with Champagne and streamers, it seems fitting to revisit the MoneyTalks list of obsoletes.

Read more…

In a society where many families no longer live in the same city, state, or sometimes even in the same country, I often wonder:  does technology help keep our family bonds strong or does it water down those relationships?

The holidays are upon us and this time of year reminds me of family—the importance of family, and the importance of being with family.

Growing up, my family always had at least one holiday where everyone–aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, even the pets–were physically together. We all lived in the same state, so it was easier to get together.

It’s not like that now. Today, we are much more spread out. I have family in different time zones, different states, and even different countries. We are lucky if we see each other once a year.

Read more…

Okay, so this isn’t really quite “Frogger,” but it is a frog. And a video game. And someone losing at the end. Our takeaway: in addition to cats, frogs are also a source of viral video win (four-plus million views in five days).

At first I felt bad for the frog, because I thought the owner was teasing it unfairly. And then Mr. Bullfrog got his revenge…