The tech blogs are abuzz (or, were, while you were eating turkey and I was out of town) about this post on TechCrunch, in which Dan Ackerman Greenberg, a Stanford business student who makes a living “run[ning] clandestine marketing campaigns meant to ensure that promotional videos become truly viral” shares “some of the techniques I use to do my job: to get at least 100,000 people to watch my clients’ ‘viral’ videos.”

TechCrunch later published a letter from Greenberg, in which he claimed his “original post was framed quite differently, but after going through the TechCrunch editorial filter, it ended up sounding like a tell-all about our shady business practices.” Greenberg went on to say that he had intended to write a “how-to for marketers on YouTube, morals aside, in an attempt to bring to light everything that could be (and is) going on on YouTube and beyond. However, I DO NOT EMPLOY OR ENDORSE ALL OF THE STRATEGIES USED IN THE POST.”

Bloggers and the TechCrunch commenters got all up in arms about the very idea that corporations are essentially paying a firm to game YouTube, but I’m wondering if this really news? More after the jump.

…Read more