[radarsat1]

Can't edit the comment so I'll just put this here: didn't expect this to get upvoted to be honest ;) I was trying to be bitter and petty as a kind of dark humour, but for the record I actually think it's pretty cool that students at MIT have that kind of support behind them.

That said, it's always sort of amusing to see the MIT PR-machine at work, because it's so _obvious_ once you get familiar with how they work. At most universities the idea of hiring someone to make a professional animation with perfect sound-studio recorded narrative for a single project/paper would just... not happen. On the other hand I can see why they do it, because it works.. it really changes how people perceive the work, and the importance of it. On the other hand, yes, it can be a little frustrating to see something sort of publicized as completely game-changing as if the work came leaped forth from the vacuum of space and directly into the minds of MIT graduate students, when plenty of other people at other universities are doing related work. (How many citations does the video have, for example?) Not saying that's the case here, but I'll admit that it's sometimes been how I've initially reacted to things from MIT that were closer to my research domain. Kind of like, "hey that's pretty similar to what I'm doing, how come I don't have a dedicated web page and professional video and thousands of hits coming from the top of hacker news and reddit?" And then it hits me: "oh right, because I didn't make one.."

tldr; MIT has PR down to a science. They take publicity seriously, and it makes a huge difference for them. That is not necessarily a bad thing, although it does raise the bar for everyone else, which can be kind of annoying when you have papers and theses to write.

[MichaelGG]

This is ridiculous. The amount of time that went into this project is probably fairly large. In a more competitive world, making some short videos and a basic page seems quite obvious. If the people involved spent, I dunno, 8 weeks on the project, then spent another few days putting together some materials to explain their work, that seems totally obvious and helpful.

Why do you think professionals were hired? A basic microphone+blanket to damp echos, and a passing familiarity (perhaps a friend) with a video editor should be enough to put that together. (No offense to the team.) If you wanted to hire someone, I'm betting you could get it done for $50 on Fiverr. Another $10 for a domain, and a few bucks for hosting.

You're making it sound like this is some huge professional outfit with a coordinated marketing plan. It looks more like someone trying to show off their project that they spent a lot of time on.

[dgreensp]

As the primary author stated, MIT PR does not make these videos. I've seen plenty of dry, poorly-produced videos; what you're seeing reflects the dedication, talent, and charisma of the researcher more than anything else. Source: I was a grad student at MIT.