In a recent search for this week’s story in the New Yorker, The Ponzi State, written by George Packer, I ran across a video promotion for the story done to promote the reporter and his work. Ponzi State Video Clip Looks as though Mr. Packer shot it himself. Although the interview and the video is amateurish, it points up the fact that even mediocre video can work on the web as a cross promtion. Now whether or not the New Yorker is promoting it sufficiently to yield any clicks is a whole different question. You can read a short abstract… but to see the whole story you need to either subscribe to the magazine or buy a purchase this issue of the magazine – presumably a digital version of the magazine.

In other Ponzi news, the testimony of Harry Markopolos in front of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises was the hot ticket in DC yesterday.  Mr. Markopolos’s testimony about the ineptitude of government watchodogs who failed to take action on his multiple warning about the Madoff scandal, and it made for great tv sound bytes that premired on all network news shows yesterday and this morning.