5, 21. 2007
Tricks to stir up popularity for some particular videos uploaded to the YouTube video sharing website are now rampant, raising controversy in the United States. The incident was reported by the Los Angeles Times on the website on May 3, 2007. Other tricks to get hits for videos on the website by “staging” in order to win a high place in hit ranking were also introduced. Besides click advertisements, ordinary videos are also likely to be subjected to questionable accesses.
According to the Los Angeles Times, a video showing a young girl who called herself “GreenTeaGirlie” who gave only a short greeting obtained 170,000 hits on the first day it appeared. The girl in the video was a green tea sales person and it was posted by a college student who is her friend. By using a program to automatically repeat access, the number of hits was intentionally pushed up.
It is not a matter of videos alone.
Hits rushed to video of a young girl who only gave a short message.
Access to posted videos tend to concentrate on those that are in the higher spots in access ranking. Thus, the higher the spot in the ranking, the more popularity gained with accelerated speed for videos. Winning of higher places in the access ranking does not immediately lead to earning of money at present. YouTube, Inc., however, is planning in principle to offer reward for posting videos which win high places in the access ranking in the near future, and it is highly possible that the tricks will be used increasingly to push up hits to particular videos.
In a different incident, another mysterious video in which a nameless girl talk about her daily experience gained popularity. It was disclosed that the girl was a budding actress who was chosen through audition, and professional producers took part in the production of the video of the staged act.
Yuta Kouse, chief researcher at The Japan Research Institute, Ltd. who wrote “All about Net Advertisement” and other books, pointed out about the questionable accesses to videos on websites as follows:
-- The video sharing service is certain to keep expanding from now on in Japan. The incident involving YouTube that occurred of late is unheard of in the Japanese of video service. Over the net service as a whole, however, it is not a rare incident. The latest report reveals only the tip of the iceberg. It is possible that a similar incident has already occurred in Japan also.
In case of net advertisement, questionable methods of using programs to automatically push up hits are frequently used. The site managers are trying to prevent such methods but they can not catch up. About the “staging”, it is now a serious issue being discussed that some bloggers are paid by business firms and they post messages about the products of the firms for the public to see without disclosing that they are paid. If YouTube starts to pay money, the same situation as that of net advertisement is very well expected to happen. There is a strong ground in Japan that the same sort of thing will happen for the domestic video service.
As for measures to meet the changing situation, Kouse says that there is nothing that can be done except leaving the matter to the managers of the sites as far as the “automatic clicking” is concerned. Concerning the “staging”, however, he says it has to be disclosed who is doing it. Otherwise, the visitors to the sites will become suspicious, he added.
It is difficult to draw a line between the fairness and unfairness about the automatic clicking. J-CAST News reported in May 2006 about deleting of advertisements that were considered to be intended for unfair clicking to the surprise of the visitors to the sites.
