Sleazebag

It seems to me that very little is actually sleazy. For example he says you should post all the items in a series at the same time, not string them out and make people wait. His logic makes sense. He suggests deleting and reposting the second (and, presumably, subsequent items to give them a chance of hitting the main page). This doesn't seem so bad to me. You see videos reposted all the time.

What else does he talk about?
* You want to get on the "most viewed" page. Well, duh. This is every poster's goal.
* You want an eye-catching title. Obvious. Ebay people get this wrong all the time. Do you ever search for "hot" or "rare"? At this moment, "hot" gets 118K matches and "rare" gets 276K. Use better titles!
* Use misleading titles if it helps you. This gets done *all* the time. A bit shady but it's standard practice.
* You want an eye-catching thumbnail. Of course you do.
* Use unique tags so you can link your videos to each other. How is this unethical?
* Measure your success. Seems like a good idea to me.

And then we come to:

* Have a conversation with yourself
* Delete negative comments.

Not cool. Not ethical. My alternative: invite everyone you know to view the video and comment on it.

* Paying bloggers to post (pointed out by tomfakes, below)

Clearly not ethical if they don't disclose it.

Don't forget paying bloggers to put the video on their blogs.

The fact that he'd do *anything* to get what he needs makes him a sleazebag, and then he can justify it with 'it works!'

Good point. I was just going from memory and missed that. I don't think paying for posts is so bad *if it's disclosed*. If the videos are good/interesting enough, the disclosure shouldn't make a difference.

I edited my comment above to add it. So, overall, the guy's sleazy. Sure. But, a lot of what he suggests isn't sleazy.

Now this guy's saying that these sleazy techniques aren't techniques he uses, but some in the industry do! Somehow, I don't think many people will believe him. Reputation is hard to build and easy to destroy.

More coverage for him!