COM 150 -- No, read this YouTube post last

Standing procedure -- to get a thread in chronological order, read a blog from the bottom up, right? I thought I'd wrapped up the thread last night. Then there were more stories in today's papers. By the way, both of them could suggest good term paper topics that I wasn't thinking of when I wrote your assignment sheet on term papers last night.

Anyway, there were two stories in The Washington Post today on YouTube.

The first looks like a Business Section story on YouTube and its competition. It's by Sam Diaz. Here's the gist of it:

YouTube has suffered a one-two punch in the past two weeks.

First, Viacom asked for $1 billion in a lawsuit against YouTube, saying the video Web site failed to remove copyright-protected clips. And yesterday, some of the most powerful businesses in Hollywood and on the Internet joined forces to create an online video site of their own, taking some of the Web's most popular videos with them.

YouTube is at a critical juncture. Since it launched in December 2005, it has ridden a wave of popularity that led Google to buy it in a $1.65 billion deal last year. But now the site must figure out its relationship with major traditional media companies while also forging its business, which to date has relied on advertising posted alongside videos.

The partnership announced yesterday by NBC, News Corp., AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft creates a first-of-its-kind alternative to some of YouTube's most popular content: TV and movie clips and music videos that were often posted there without permission. Unlike YouTube, the new competitor -- which says it will launch its Web site this summer -- has proposed a wide offering of videos, borrowing the iTunes model of offering some files for free and others, in this case movies and TV shows, for a fee.

YouTube has already had copyright issues. Read about 'em in the Post's story. But it is essentially a networking site, and can probably survive on user-generated content. Home videos of aunts, uncles, grandchildren, ferrets and cats. Read about that angle, too. It's a good story.

The other one, by media critic Howard Kurtz and staff writer Jose Antonio Vargas, is about the Hillary Clinton mash-up. The headline says it all: "A Brave New World of Political Skulduggery?" Well, suggests it all would be more accurate. It's the subhead in the second deck that says it: "Anti-Clinton Video Shows Ease of Attack In the Computer Age."

Reaction from the agency, and spokesmen for the Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns:

Thomas Gensemer, managing director of Blue State, a District [of Columbia]-based online strategy firm, said he fired de Vellis Wednesday night. "This is an unfortunate situation all around," he said. Gensemer said his firm has provided only technical assistance, not creative services, to the senator's campaign. Joe Rospars, Obama's new media director, is on leave from Blue State.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton declined to criticize the video. He said Blue State "handled it internally and we're satisfied with their response," adding: "We can't be held responsible for everything a supporter says and does. . . . We don't hold our opponents responsible for any of a number of negative YouTube ads up there about Senator Obama."

Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, said he finds it "disappointing that we all believed this ad was made by an average citizen expressing himself or herself, and that turned out not to be the case." Asked if the Obama camp should disavow the video, Wolfson said: "That's their decision."

Strategy behind these quotes? Oh, yes, you bet. Blue State and Obama trying to minimize the story, and Clinton trying to milk it for all it's worth.

Quotes I like best are from a guy at another online consulting firm and from Arianna Huffington, readers of whose blog tracked down the Blue State guy who did the ad on his own time. They're at the end of the story. Introductory newswriting students will recognize the "kicker" or twist at the end:

"If I were a traditional media strategist, an old-school guy, I'd think, 'See, you can't trust these crazy kids,' " said Jonah Seiger, who heads the online strategy firm Connections Media. "If one of my employees did this, I'd be outraged. It would reflect badly on my company. It can't help but reflect badly on my client. . . . There's no question that this causes embarrassment to Obama."

The imbroglio highlighted not just how the power to push a message has shifted from big campaign organizations to lone operators with rudimentary video skills, but how technology makes subterfuge easier to accomplish -- and easier to detect.

"You can be as anonymous as you want on the Internet," Huffington said. "But the minute you create something powerful that has impact, people are going to find out who it is."