Stop the Clinton YouTube Embargo
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 3rd, 2007 10:34 pmWhen I first posted the Clinton Sopranos parody video to YouTube, I could hardly imagine it would become the second most viewed video that day, with over 250,000 views. Other versions trailed narrowly behind, fetching at least 700,000 extra viewers. All told, over a million watched the video on YouTube.
That’s not what the Clinton campaign intended. They wanted to have this moment all to themselves, so they didn’t post it to their YouTube channel, instead roadblocking people to HillaryClinton.com where there would be no conversation, no comments, and no pesky video replies. While on the site, they also wanted people to sign up and donate.
You’d think only a Clinton supporter would post such a funny and flattering video of the two, but I saw this as an opportunity to divert traffic from the Clinton web site and perhaps reduce their online take from the video. It was successful, to the tune of a quarter million people who watched it on YouTube instead of HillaryClinton.com.
Now, they’ve done it again with their “HillCam” video of Hillary and Bill trekking through Iowa. And again, they’ve offered a high-res Quicktime download. And again, I’ve posted it to YouTube for them, so Democrats won’t have to go to Hillary’s site to get it.
Spontaneous? Unvarnished? You decide.
BTW, can you spot the pander?
Bill says he’s returning to Iowa and meeting many of the same people he met 15 years before. But Clinton didn’t contest the Iowa Caucuses in 1992, when native son Tom Harkin vacuumed up (IIRC) about 70% of the vote. In fact, Harkin was already in the race by the time Clinton entered in October of 1991. So it’s unlikely Bill met many Iowans in 1992, except as a general election candidate.
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hillary clinton iowa tom harkin youtube
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[…] Now, they’ve done it again with their “HillCam” video of Hillary and Bill trekking through Iowa. And again, they’ve offered a high-res Quicktime download. And again, I’ve posted it to YouTube for them, so Democrats won’t have to go to Hillary’s site to get it. (Patrick Ruffini: Stop the Clinton YouTube Embargo) […]
How to Download Videos and Audio from YouTube…
Savvy users can get around this walled garden with external toolswhich, beside being free, make extracting video and/or audio effortless….
[…] As an aside, earlier in the campaign the Clinton campaign was slow to post videos to YouTube, hoping to make people come to their site to view all of her videos. In response, Patrick Ruffini started downloading Clinton’s videos and posting them to YouTube in an effort to divert traffic. Ruffini (and others) probably cost Hillary’s YouTube channel 400,000+ views by doing this. […]
[…] I had voiced the concern that they were blowing it by announcing the announcement. While we’ll never know what this chart would have looked like with a real surprise announcement, this does put him in the same general range as Hillary and Obama’s announcement (factoring in residual ImWithFred traffic) and it beats the Sopranos (why would that be?). […]