Marketers. Media. We need to talk. We’re like – what? Ten years into Web 2.0 and y’all still haven’t figured out that: 1. CGI-manipulated babies performing unnatural skill sets are creepy and B. Calling a commercially produced video “viral” doesn’t make it so.

Just so we’re clear, a pack of freaky tots roller boogying to Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” is an Evian bottled water marketing campaign – a successful one that premiered on the video sharing site YouTube, but a commercial all the same. Unlike advertisements, viral videos destined for YouTube perpetuity don’t exist to sell something or avoid insulting an audience. Their only mission is to be awesome. Questionable parenting behavior, chronic diseases and even satirizing a genocidal madman are all fair game for infinite remixes and mashups.

Read more here

The power of social networking and new media to change the world was evident in Iran last month and is proving to be a force in the ethnic turmoil in Xinjiang, China, as well.

Read more here

Shila Renee Mullins allowed a hospital to videotape her surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Faced with economic pressures and patients with abundant choices, hospitals are using unconventional, even audacious, ways of connecting directly with the public. Seeking to attract or educate patients, entice donors, gain recognition and recruit or retain top doctors, hospitals are using Twitter from operating rooms, showing surgery on YouTube and having patients blog about their procedures.

Read more at the NY Times