Manipulating YouTube, by Scott Ogilvie
If you can't find something on YouTube, why not put it up yourself? After a token shot at the search structure of YouTube, I ask the viewer who is really in control of YouTube. Is it Google? Is it mainstream media and its copyright limitations? Is it the users? The content on YouTube is almost completely determined by its users. They determine what is popular, so in essence it is they who are determining what videos are returned in searches. They determined what is on YouTube by posting their own content, and can evenly creatively avoid copyright problems. Or is it even possible to control YouTube at all? Is it just such a mess that it's beyond control, and it essentially does what it wants? I would argue that while disorganized and messy, it is not, in fact, a black hole of videos and data. Try doing a search for the actual title of my video (not the texteo) on YouTube to see how easy it is to overcome problems with the search algorithm.