techPresident - Cobra Commander. - Comments

Google hits vs. viral e-mail

EyeblastTV — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:14:42 -0400

Josh: I've been on vacation for a few days, but it occurred to me that your conspiritorial thinking about Eyeblast stats is based on the flawed assumption that Google links are the only true gauge of viral video traffic. You couldn't be more wrong.

I made clear early on that the first viral video at Eyeblast is the result of the social-networking tools built into our site -- specifically the ability to e-mail links for videos to friends. Most of the traffic for "A Video Portrait Of Barack Hussein Obama" is coming from e-mail links, according to (oh, the irony) Google Analytics. I also mentioned the Facebook groups dedicated to this video, the discussions on bulletin boards, etc.

In other words, this is a truly viral video -- one that gained a viewership primarily by links forwarded via e-mail and, to a lesser extent, posted on bulletin boards, etc. That explains the discrepancy in Google links that, for whatever reason, led you to envision and unprofessionally spread rumors of an imagined conspiracy without any evidence to support your fantasy.

Danny Glover, Executive Producer
Eyeblast TV

Josh, You're better

EyeblastTV — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:05:25 -0400

Josh,

You're better qualified than me to analyze the numbers. Yes, I was the editor of Tech Daily, but I must admit that I don't have the technical skills for that kind of task. :)))

I only know what Google Analytics tells me, and the 1 million-plus views (and still rising rapidly -- watch for yourself by going to our home page and hitting the refresh button every few minutes) isn't fictitious. We have indeed had that many visits to the video page about Obama.

I don't think the numbers are suspicious, either. I understand where you're coming from in terms of comparison, but Eyeblast launched only a month ago and isn't owned by Google. I'm not sure how sound it is to compare us with YouTube in that sense.

Frankly, I was surprised to see the number for the Obama video so low on YouTube. I wish I knew what was making this video spread like wildfire via Eyeblast instead of YouTube because I'd love to be able to make it happen again rather than just watch it happen on its own.

Danny

Explain the views!

Joshua Levy — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:55:23 -0400

Danny, I simply jabbed at Eyeblast for promoting a negative attack video. There's obviously debate on the site about it, which is great. And it made for great techPres fodder.

But Eyeblast and YouTube are not fruit from the same tree. Despite conservatives' complaints about bias on YouTube, it advertises itself as nonpartisan (its practices are another thing). Eyeblast does not, which is fine. But that means that Eyeblast needs to be viewed, and critiqued, differently than YouTube -- as a online partisan platform -- just as Townhall is a different kind of news entity than CNN, for example.

I'll ask again: explain those discrepancies in Google hits.

Josh, Here's what I wrote in

EyeblastTV — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:44:55 -0400

Josh,

Here's what I wrote in my note to you yesterday:

"It's one of those love-it-or-hate-it videos. The people who love it are determined to spread the word via the social-networking tools on our Web site and elsewhere, and the people who hate it are ranting against it in the comments. I thought you might be interested in the video purely from the Web 2.0 perspective, regardless of what you think of the subject matter and how it is handled in the production."

That paragraph was designed to put this video in some perspective for you even before you watched it and also to make clear that I wasn't promoting the video per se, just the news that Eyeblast had become a forum where a presidential video had gained some traction with part of the electorate -- and angered another part. Again, that seemed like "news" for a site like techPresident.

As for Eyeblast being part of the Media Research Center, that's no secret. You've noted it here before, and it's on our "about" page. Furthermore, while the MRC built Eyeblast for the conservative movement and our goal is to spread the conservative message to the next generation, it is an open forum. Your suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous in light of the fact that I specifically told you about the battle in the comments over the video in question.

Your suggestion that YouTube is "neutral" also is off the mark. Yes, conservatives can post video at YouTube (just as liberals who want to engage in reasoned debate can upload to Eyeblast) ... but conservatives also are the only ones who get content yanked from YouTube for political reasons (sometimes under the guise of copyright law even when "fair use" is at play). Ask Michelle Malkin, the American Life League and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to name a few. YouTube reserved itself on the recent American Life League controversy invoving its criticism of Planned Parenthood, but the fact remains that those episodes always involve YouTube deleting the content of conservatives.

We built Eyeblast in part because of the liberal bias and favoritism at YouTube -- turning over its entire featured video section to environmentalists on Earth Day, for instance, without featuring any videos that raise questions about the environmental agenda. I don't necessarily think YouTube executives send orders from on high for the staff to promote liberalism, but the liberal slant at the site rears its ugly head fairly regularly.

Danny

Why are the Google search numbers so off?

Joshua Levy — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:32:47 -0400

Danny, it's obvious that this video has gone "viral" and is being passed around by lots of conservative voters. But what I'm seeing on Google doesn't compute; a similarly viral video has hundreds of thousands more hits. Can you explain that?

Eyeblast numbers

EyeblastTV — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:07:14 -0400

What's "highly suspicious" about the numbers, Josh? You're starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist.

We've had a dramatic spike in traffic since our public launch April 2, and much of it has been to this one video. It is being forwarded virally using the Web 2.0 tools on our site. Most of the traffic coming to the video is via e-mail; Facebook (at least five groups created to promote it); Google searches for the video's URL, title, subject matter; links added to bulletin boards and other forums; and other Web 2.0 tools like Digg.

As for why you're just now hearing about the video, the answer is obvious: I e-mailed you yesterday to tell you about it. I thought that Eyeblast hitting the 1 million mark on a video for the first time -- and for a video about a presidential candidate -- was news that techPresident might want to report.

There's nothing suspicious about that.

Danny Glover, Executive Producer
Eyeblast TV

Naivete

Joshua Levy — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:03:59 -0400

Danny, I think you know me better than to suggest that I would fault Eyeblast for the voter-generated content that is posted on it. And that's not what I did here. I was reacting, first, to the video itself, which is full of sleazy repetitions of "facts" that have been discounted over and over again. I was also reacting to Eyeblast's use of the video to promote itself. While it's good for Eyeblast that the video received so much attention, you're not exactly distancing yourself from its message by promoting Eyeblast with it.

You also failed to mention that Eyeblast is a division of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group. It isn't non-partisan, which differentiates it from a neutral platform like YouTube.

O'Reilly's attacks on DailyKos are an example of his possibly deliberate misunderstanding of how online communities work. He picks up on a few objectionable posts from members and blames the site for it. But it would be different if Kos emailed those posts around and used them as an example of how successful his web site is.

On another note, I'm quite surprised that the video has received more than 1,000,000 views of the video. As you noted in your message to me, it's only been viewed a fraction as many times on YouTube (about 40,000) as on Eyeblast. And when I searched for the title on Google it brings up 614 pages; a search for "The Empire Strikes Barack," which has been viewed just 10,000 more times than this video, brings up 17,600,000 pages. How can you explain that?

Not a "hit job" by Eyeblast

EyeblastTV — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:08:33 -0400

Hi Josh,

Thanks for calling attention to the top video on Eyeblast TV. One clarification, though: The video isn't a "hit job" by us, as your description implies.

Like YouTube, Eyeblast is a user-generated video site. We do create videos of our own, but this one isn't ours. I was surprised to see that kind of comment by a site as attuned to the ways of the Web 2.0 world as techPresident.

By all means attack the message if you don't like the video. Plenty of users at Eyeblast are doing that very thing in the comments section on our site. But don't attack the messenger.

As I mentioned in a note to you yesterday, the same video is on YouTube. Do you think YouTube is guilty of a hit job, too? Your not-so-subtle slap at Eyeblast is no different than Bill O'Reilly attacking The Huffington Post or Daily Kos based on the activities of commenters there.

Just a friendly reminder from a new media colleague who respects the work you and everyone else does at techPresident, Personal Democracy Forum and beyond.

Danny Glover, Executive Producer
Eyeblast TV