Needless to say, a site that is so popular and crucial to the explosion of social media and viral marketing is an incredibly powerful tool. Something so big, especially on the Internet, almost has to be. Unfortunately, however, every so often, somebody receives a lesson in just how powerful YouTube can be. Many times, these lessons are unwanted and can be somewhat vicious.

Just ask former UCLA student, Alexandra Wallace.

In case you haven’t heard, Wallace was recently attending UCLA, and she decided she wanted to study in the library. Problem was, at least to Wallace, there were “too many Asians” in the library for her to effectively study, and so she made a now-infamous video called “Asians in the Library,” where Wallace proceeded to share her feelings about the apparent explosion of studious Asian students at UCLA. She even went as far to mention the catastrophic events in Japan in a rant that quickly turned into an uneducated, racist diatribe.

You can see for yourself, if you’d like:

Needless to say, the aftermath of Wallace’s video has been felt far and wide.

After the video went viral, which was after Wallace attempted to take it down, she was greeted with the kind of responses you’d expect from an Internet crowd: death threats and other promises of physical violence; so much so, in fact, Wallace removed herself from school, but not after she wrote a letter to The Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student paper, as an attempt to explain herself.

The letter reads:

In an attempt to produce a humorous YouTube video, I have offended the UCLA community and the entire Asian culture. I am truly sorry for the hurtful words I said and the pain it caused to anyone who watched the video. Especially in the wake of the ongoing disaster in Japan, I would do anything to take back my insensitive words. I could write apology letters all day and night, but I know they wouldn’t erase the video from your memory, nor would they act to reverse my inappropriate action.

I made a mistake. My mistake, however, has lead to the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats, and being ostracized from an entire community. Accordingly, for personal safety reasons, I have chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA.

Alexandra Wallace

Which sounds an awful lot like:

I’m sorry I got outed for the video. I’m sorry I got caught. Had I been more thoughtful and not recorded my feelings about Asians using UCLA’s library and posted them on the Internet, nothing about my enrollment would be changed. That being said, I cannot stand the idea of being labeled as a racist for something you guys just didn’t get, and so, I’m going to use the safety of my parents as an excuse to run away from all this drama I caused.

Go ____ yourself,

Alexandra

Needless to say, there have been a number of video responses and mash-ups concerning Wallace’s “love one another” video, and there about what you’d expect:

And then there’s this piece of animated genius, which captures the details quite well:

Finally we have the inevitable remix:

There’s much, much more where this came from.

With that, welcome to Internet infamy, Miss Wallace. Enjoy your stay… And your new college, wherever that will be. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be forgotten by the time enrollment for the fall semester comes.

"Over 90 percent of teens today use social networking sites, not just to interact with their peers but also to get information about issues that are important to them," said Michael Prelip, a professor of community health sciences at the UCLA School of Public Health and one of the principal investigators of the project.

"This intervention will provide important clues about the effectiveness of social media in influencing adolescents’ understanding of their health care rights, responsibilities and benefits so that they can become good health care consumers."

The two-year project, funded by a $1.1 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health, will use a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of two different interventions – a Web-based social media intervention and a "usual care" intervention – to improve preventive care and decrease emergency room visits among adolescents.

"One of our chief goals is establishing best practices for encouraging teens to use their insurance and the health care system so they can become knowledgeable health care consumers as they transition into adulthood," said Nancy Wongvipat Kalev, Health Net’s director of health education and cultural and linguistic services and one of the study’s collaborators.

The study will look at the impact of various traditional and newer social media usage patterns regarding health literacy and preventive health practices.
 

The partnership between Clicker and UCLA will give students access to content from sites and networks like ABC, MTV, PBS, Hulu and YouTube. The content will feature television shows, music videos, movies, web originals, as well as UCLA content such as lectures and symposiums.

"College students are clearly some of the most avid consumers of online media," said Jim Lanzone, founder and CEO of Clicker.

"Our new service will give UCLA students a more effective way to find legal online entertainment, and a more efficient way to access UCLA’s substantial body of original videos, together in one seamless experience. UCLA on Clicker will take the guesswork out of finding what is available to watch, where to watch it, and what’s worth watching online."

Clicker said its co-branded version of its service combines its existing 600,000-episode catalog with original videos from UCLA. In addition, UCLA on Clicker was developed and will be supported without student dollars. The site is available to UCLA students for free.

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All for Good helps people find ways to get involved in their community, from being a mentor to helping design a website for a nonprofit. The platform allows people to sign in to Facebook or Google to share volunteer activities with others across social networking services.

"By bringing together amazing service opportunities from existing volunteer organizations, we hope to amplify their efforts and share ways to do good across the web," said Paul Rademacher, a software engineer at Google and a tech lead on the project.

"Built as a free, open-source project, the All for Good platform and search API allow the community-at-large — from software developers to community organizers and local activists — to contribute innovations to the site and drive the direction and growth of the platform."

The All for Good platform and API allow community organizers and nonprofit leaders to each more volunteers. Developers who want to build volunteer applications can visit the site for more information. The All for Good Apps page provides examples and instructions.

In partnership with All for Good, YouTube is launching "Video Volunteers," a platform aimed at connecting non-profit organizations with video needs and skilled video makers who can help communicate their causes via video.

The All for Good initiative was part of a Google 20-percent project and the search on the site is also powered by Google.

A University of California Los Angles team of scientists found searching on the Internet stimulates parts of the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning.

The findings come from a study of 24 volunteers aged 55 to 76 who were asked to either search online or read while their brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Dr. Gary Small

"The study results are encouraging, that emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults," said principal investigator Dr Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at University of California.

‘Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function."

The volunteers in the study were composed of two groups, half were experienced Internet users and the others were not.

All the study participants showed increased brain activity while reading a book, but Internet searches revealed a difference between the two groups. Those who were Internet savvy registered more brain activity, while those new to the Internet did not.

"Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading – but only in those with prior Internet experience," said Dr Small.