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July/August 2008

Internet Gridlock

Video is clogging the Internet. How we choose to unclog it will have far-reaching implications.

By Larry Hardesty

Star Wars: Episode IV according to a three-year-old.

An obscure blogger films his three-year-old daughter reciting the plot of the first Star Wars movie. He stitches together the best parts--including the sage advice "Don't talk back to Darth Vader; he'll getcha"--and posts them on the video-sharing website YouTube. Seven million people download the file. A baby-faced University of Minnesota graduate student with an improbably deep voice films himself singing a mind-numbingly repetitive social-protest song called "Chocolate Rain": 23 million downloads. A self-described "inspirational comedian" films the six-minute dance routine that closes his presentations, which summarizes the history of popular dance from Elvis to Eminem: 87 million downloads.

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