Samsung Stock Falls 5% as Won Gains Strength

SEOUL, South Korea — The stock of Samsung Electronics fell more than 5 percent Thursday to its lowest point in over four months. Analysts had forecasted lower quarterly earnings due to the strong won and weaker margins in the company’s display business.

Shares fell as much as 5.1 percent on Thursday to 1.302 million won, the lowest since late August. The stock was down 4.6 percent at closing, its fifth consecutive session of decline, a trend that has wiped nearly $18 billion off the market value of Asia’s most valuable company.

Samsung, the world’s largest maker of smartphones, memory chips and televisions, is scheduled to report its October-December quarter earnings estimate on Tuesday.

The company is forecast to report a record 10.3-trillion-won operating profit in the October-December quarter, a 1 percent increase from the previous quarter, according to an average estimate of 40 analysts.

But Starmine SmartEstimate, the average of the most accurate analysts’ estimates, forecasts a 3.6 percent quarter-on-quarter drop in Samsung’s operating profit to 9.9 trillion won.

“We expect Samsung’s performance to be about 9.5 trillion won, lower than the market consensus of around 10.2 trillion won,” said Lee Seung-woo, tech analyst at I.B.K. Investment & Securities.

A stronger won is particularly bad for the profitability of Samsung’s component business as the unit mainly uses the dollar for settlement, analysts said.

The won jumped to its highest since mid-2008 on Thursday, and market participants expect more gains as data pointed toward a firm economic recovery.

Peter Yu, a BNP Paribas analyst and one of the more bearish about Samsung’s earnings, estimated the operating profit of the component business to change 4 percent for every 1 percent change in the won-dollar rate.

He also estimated Samsung’s fourth-quarter profit to fall by 14 percent from the previous quarter to 8.8 trillion won due to a stronger won, a one-off special bonus payment and weaker sales of smartphone components.

Raw Data: Effort to End E.U. Roaming Fees Gains Momentum

When she announced in May her desire to ban the unpopular fees, which travelers pay in the 28-nation European Union outside their home countries, Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner responsible for telecommunications, was greeted with skepticism. And with less than 11 months left before the European Parliament’s legislative session ends June 30, some observers in Brussels thought Mrs. Kroes had run out of time.

But while most of official Brussels is on vacation, Mrs. Kroes and her staff appear to be edging closer to a deal that could abolish the fees, which make up an estimated 5 percent of operators’ sales — but a bigger chunk of profits.

According to a copy of the draft regulation Mrs. Kroes has circulated among members of the European Commission and which has been obtained by the International Herald Tribune, operators would get an incentive to lower roaming rates to the level of domestic calling fees.

The incentive would be a big one: an exemption from a law passed last year, also initiated by Mrs. Kroes, that will give E.U. consumers the option of buying roaming service from any operator on the Continent, not just their own, meaning the local operator could lose a customer who is out of the country altogether if it does not lower the rates.

The draft regulation would remove this right for consumers whose operators joined an alliance of carriers offering pan-European mobile phone roaming service at the same prices that consumers would pay if they did not leave home.

Some operators have objected, arguing that they should not be coerced to lower the fees, which are currently capped by retail price controls that expire at the end of June 2017. The current caps limit roaming charges to €0.24, or $0.32, per minute for a voice call, €0.07 per minute to receive a call, €0.08 to send a text message, and €0.45 for every downloaded megabyte of data.

One person with knowledge of the industry’s lobbying position on the issue, who did not want to be identified because negotiations were at a delicate stage, said some operators were concerned that E.U. consumers would be free to buy low-cost roaming service, a form of “arbitrage” that could lead to the elimination of the fees altogether.

But that is precisely the goal of Mrs. Kroes and a growing number of lawmakers in the European Parliament, who view the fees as a hurdle to broad adoption of mobile broadband.

A new study to be released this month by Nielsen on behalf of Syniverse, a seller of roaming software and services to 900 mobile operators, including Telefónica and Vodafone in Europe, confirmed that the fees were still an obstacle — despite price caps and text messages warning consumers that they were racking up charges.

In a survey of 13,000 consumers in 13 European countries obtained by the International Herald Tribune, the study found that on average 56 percent of cellphone users either limited the use of mobile Internet or turned off the roaming function on their devices entirely while traveling within the European Union.

Danielle Jacobs, chairwoman of the International Telecommunications Users Group, an association in Driebergen, the Netherlands, that represents telecommunications user groups in Europe, South America and Asia, said Europe’s system of roaming fees was slowing the adoption of cloud-based mobile services, especially those used by business travelers. “Intug would be very happy with the abolishment of roaming fees in Europe,” Mrs. Jacobs, who is also the chairwoman of the Belgian users’ group, Beltug, said in an interview. “The uncertainty about mobile data roaming prices and the possible bill shocks are putting the brakes on using more mobile applications.”

Mrs. Kroes’s push to eliminate the fees faces hurdles. The European Parliament must support her plan, as must the Council of Ministers, which comprises representatives of each member state and is where telecommunications companies exert greater influence because they are large employers.

Pressure for change is building in Brussels. On July 9, members of the Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy committee voted unanimously to end roaming fees by July 2015. The full Parliament is scheduled to take up the issue in September, when Mrs. Kroes is also expected to present details of her plan to lawmakers.

One lawmaker, Paul Rübig, who was a sponsor of the original roaming price controls that took effect in 2007, said that the momentum to end roaming fees had reached a critical intensity in Brussels.

With elections for the European Parliament scheduled for May, Mr. Rübig, a representative from Wels, Austria, said lawmakers were well aware of the possible political gain from banning the unpopular fees. According to Mr. Rübig, a survey this year of voter attitudes before the E.U. election showed that the top issue for Austrian voters — more important than basic freedoms and other civil rights — was the abolition of roaming fees in the European Union.

The survey conducted by the Austrian government found a level of support for ending fees that Mr. Rübig said was common across the bloc.

“The pressure to end roaming fees in the upcoming session will be enormous,” Mr. Rübig said in an interview. “The days of roaming fees are definitely numbered.”

Mary Clark, a vice president at Syniverse, based in Tampa, Florida, has followed the issue closely in Europe because it is central to her company’s business.

She said that whether lawmakers voted to ban roaming fees outright next year or forced operators to eliminate the fees to retain their customers, change was coming.

“The end result is, we are going to get to an environment where the home pricing is the same as roaming pricing from a retail point of view,” Ms. Clark said.

Tool Kit: Virtual Currency Gains Ground in Actual World

A type of digital cash, bitcoins were invented in 2009 and can be sent directly to anyone, anywhere in the world. You don’t have to go through a financial institution, which means no fees and no one tracking your spending habits. With a current market capitalization of $1 billion, bitcoins are beginning to be more widely accepted. You can use them to pay for a pizza or make speculative bets that could end up financing your child’s college education.

But bitcoins, and other digital currencies, have also come under scrutiny. Liberty Reserve, an online payment system, was shuttered in the spring by New York authorities, who said the company used its digital currency, known as LRs, to launder up to $6 billion. And law enforcement officials have voiced concerns that bitcoins could also abet illegal transactions. Bart Chilton, a commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, suggested that bitcoins might be ripe for regulation.

Moreover, some critics say the bitcoin infrastructure is insecure, as hackable as any other computer-based system.

“The way the basic bitcoin system works is both incredibly solid and incredibly clever from a technical standpoint,” said Nicholas Weaver, senior staff researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, which studies and advances a range of emerging technologies. “The system’s security is fragile, however, and the economic model behind bitcoin is, well, crazy stupid.”

Nonetheless, paying with bitcoins can be a weirdly fun way to make transactions. Here is a primer on how to do it.

Like gold, bitcoins, which are both a currency and a commodity, are in limited supply (there is a cap of 21 million total) and have to be “mined” before they are put in circulation. Anyone can mine for bitcoins by downloading software, known as the bitcoin client, which algorithmically crunches a bunch of numbers to legitimize or authenticate a sequence or “block” of past bitcoin transactions. So bitcoins are basically minted as a reward for contributing to the smooth operation of the system. Validating a block yields 25 bitcoins, which are currently worth $2,675.

The fluctuating price of bitcoins, also like gold, is a function of supply and demand, as well as psychology. “Bitcoins have value because people say they have value,” said Andrew White, a former I.T. manager for the Wikipedia Foundation and now a digital currency entrepreneur in San Francisco.

Unlike fiat currencies like the United States dollar and virtual currencies like Facebook credits and the one invented by Liberty Reserve, bitcoins are not created or controlled by a central authority. But with the blistering rate of bitcoin transactions these days, you need a pricey and complex computer rig to effectively run the bitcoin client and procure some bitcoin bounty. An easier way to get bitcoins is to just find someone willing to sell them to you.

Julian Tosh, an I.T. systems administrator in Las Vegas, for example, lets friends and family buy items on his Amazon wish list and pays them back in bitcoins. “This works well as long as I need stuff,” said Mr. Tosh, who also presides over a Wednesday “Bitcoin Lunch Mob” in Las Vegas, which gathers to discuss and trade bitcoins.

But maybe you don’t personally know any bitcoin enthusiasts like Mr. Tosh or the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, who own around $11 million worth and have filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission to form a bitcoin investment trust. If so, you might try localbitcoins.com, which lists people in your area who are willing to exchange bitcoins for cold hard cash. The market price Tuesday afternoon was $107 for a bitcoin. Be sure to check out sellers’ profiles and reviews to make sure they are reputable. And, of course, it’s always a good idea to meet in a public place to make the transaction.

Bitcoins can be easily transferred and stored using a digital wallet app on your Android mobile device. Popular wallet apps include BitcoinSpinner and Bitcoin Wallet. There are no iOS bitcoin wallet apps and Apple did not respond to e-mails seeking an explanation. But Blockchain has an online wallet service that you can access using any Internet-connected desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

You can also get bitcoins through Mt.Gox, the largest bitcoin exchange and where the currency is traded as a commodity. But it’s a cumbersome and lengthy process, requiring wire transfers and scanning identity documents. The company, which is based in Japan, also charges a 0.6 percent fee for all transactions.

Keep in mind that the United States Department of Homeland Security in May seized Mt.Gox’s United States accounts, saying it misrepresented the full extent of its financial operations. The company did not respond to requests for comment but continues to function as before the seizure.

Another option is Coinbase, a bitcoin transaction platform, which recently announced a $5 million infusion of venture capital. While it’s still a nascent venture (not even a year old), the service hasn’t had any major hiccups yet and is relatively simple to use. You just enter your bank account and routing number, how many bitcoins you want and click “buy.” You can also send bitcoins to others through your Coinbase account. Just know you’ll be charged a 1 percent transaction fee.

Once you have your bitcoins, the fun part is spending them. Bitcoin. travel, BitcoinsInVegas.com, Spendbitcoins.com and Reddit have directories of businesses that accept bitcoins as payment. And Bitpremier.com lists high-priced luxury items (cars, jets, yachts, etc.) you can buy with bitcoins.

To make a purchase, all you have to do is type the receiver’s key code or scan their QR code into your bitcoin wallet and you’re done. Like cash transactions, you can’t cancel payment later, so be sure it’s what you want before you click “send.”

Brewster Kahle, a founder of the Internet Archive in San Francisco, said he routinely used bitcoins to pay for lunch at a local sushi restaurant. He’s interested in the technology and appreciates the libertarian aspect of it. “Bitcoin used to be just in the land of computer geeks, but not anymore,” he said.

More businesses are accepting bitcoins lately thanks to Bitpay, which supplies software for processing bitcoin payments. The merchant pays a 0.99 percent fee per transaction versus the 2 to 4 percent fees charged by credit card companies. Bitpay will also immediately convert bitcoins to dollars if the merchant desires.

“Bitcoin users are pretty enthusiastic, so you get instant loyal customers,” said Adam Penn, owner of Veggie Galaxy, a restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., which began accepting bitcoins through Bitpay in May. “So far, it’s been a no-risk revenue generator.”

Also last month, Bitpay announced a partnership with the mobile gift card app Gyft, which will allow people to use bitcoins to purchase gift cards from hundreds of retailers including Brookstone, Lowe’s, Gap, Sephora, GameStop, American Eagle, Nike, Marriott, Burger King and Fandango.

“It’s a huge development,” said Mr. Tosh in Las Vegas, who predicts Gyft’s embrace of bitcoins will lead to widespread use of the alternative currency. “Pandora’s box has been smashed.”

Or maybe not. The legal trouble at Mt.Gox sent a shiver through the market as did S.E.C. charges last week that the founder and operator of the lesser-known Bitcoin Savings and Trust in McKinney, Tex., was running a bitcoin Ponzi scheme.

Still, bitcoin advocates point out that, despite some bad actors, the actual system has not had a major security breach. Nevertheless, even the most ardent bitcoin boosters urge caution. Bitcoins have appreciated more than 700 percent since this time last year — an increase some have compared to a bubble bound to burst.

“It’s supervolatile, so I’d tell people to go slow,” said Peter Vessenes, chairman and executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes the currency. “Never hold more bitcoins than you’re prepared to lose.”

Time Warner Revenue Is Flat, Despite Cable Gains

The parent company of HBO, CNN, TNT and TBS reported revenue of $6.9 billion in the quarter that ended March 31, down 1 percent from the same period last year. Net income grew 23.5 percent to $720 million, or 75 cents a share, compared with $583 million and 59 cents a share in 2012.

“We’re off to a strong start in 2013, making us even more confident in our full-year outlook,” Jeffrey L. Bewkes, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, told analysts. He specifically pointed to the success of the company’s cable TV business, driven this quarter by an average nightly audience of 10.7 million for the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament broadcast on several Turner channels.

But Time Warner’s legacy businesses continued to lag. Later this year, the company is expected to complete the spinoff of its Time Inc. publishing unit into a separate, publicly traded company. Revenue at Time Inc., which publishes Time, People, Sports Illustrated and InStyle, fell 5 percent to $737 million, reflecting an 11 percent dip in subscription revenues.

Time Inc. eliminated roughly 6 percent of its total worldwide staff of 8,000 in the first quarter, resulting in $53 million in restructuring and severance charges. “We remain very focused on taking costs out of the business,” said John K. Martin, chief financial and administrative officer at Time Warner. Cost cutting, he added, is “an important step in preparing Time Inc. to function as a stand-alone public company.'’

Revenues at the Warner Brothers studio fell 4 percent to $2.7 billion, while operating income increased by 23 percent to $263 million. “Both ‘Gangster Squad’ and ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’ fell below our expectations,” Mr. Bewkes said.

He remained optimistic about the studio’s slate of upcoming films, including “The Great Gatsby” and “The Hangover Part III.” Warner Brothers had a strong television season with “Revolution,” an apocalyptic drama on NBC, and “Game of Thrones,” the HBO fantasy series that averages 13.4 million viewers per episode.

Mr. Bewkes defended CNN under the leadership of Jeff Zucker, the recently named president of CNN Worldwide. But, he said, the channel still needed to evolve from a trusted source of breaking news to a more regularly watched outlet. “CNN can’t just be politics and wars,” Mr. Bewkes said.

He rebuffed questions about whether the HBO Go on-demand app would be made available on an à la carte basis through a broadband connection, making the premium cable channel more like the streaming service Netflix. “We would do it if we thought it was in our economic best interest,” Mr. Bewkes said. “At this point, we don’t think it makes sense.”

Bits Blog: Facebook Gains Even as More Shares Become Available

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Facebook’s stock kept rising all day on Wednesday, and closed at $22.36.

4:30 p.m. | Updated to provide closing price of Facebook stock.

Even as the largest tranche of Facebook shares became eligible for sale on Wednesday, the stock rose more than 12 percent, one of the biggest single-day gains since the company’s messy public debut in May.

The gain was particularly noteworthy for Facebook because of fears that the 800 million shares — the largest in a series of lockup expirations that began after the initial public offering — would flood the market. Concern about so much surplus chasing demand kept prices down for several weeks, analysts said.

But the fears did not materialize. Facebook’s stock kept rising all day, and closed at $22.36.

“Fundamentally, people who look at the company see a lot of catalyst,” said Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research in New York, who is bullish on the company. He added that Facebook had delivered promising third-quarter earnings last month. That was the last time Wall Street showed so much enthusiasm for the stock: shares rallied by about 19 percent the day after the earnings report.

Still, Mr. Wieser warned that a one-day gain could be offset just as quickly. “On a short-term basis, there still could be a lot of selling into the market, and demand may or may not be there,” he said.

Within an hour of the market’s close on Wednesday, one of the largest investors in Facebook, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, sold more than 4.6 million shares. Most of those, the firm said, were its shares in Instagram, which Facebook acquired this year. Andreessen retains another 3.6 million shares in Facebook.

Even at today’s rosy levels, Facebook stock is worth about 60 percent of its initial public offering price of $38 a share. Employees and early investors started selling before Wednesday, and they could sell more in the coming days.

The company’s co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has promised not to sell his shares until next year; he is the single largest shareholder. Some of his earliest backers have unloaded some of their shares, though, including Facebook’s first angel investor, Peter Thiel. So have some of Mr. Zuckerberg’s top deputies, including Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer.

Facebook entered the public market in May with an eye-popping $100 billion valuation, in what was the largest public offering from a technology company. It began plummeting soon after.

Among Wall Street’s biggest concerns has been the company’s ability to turn a profit as its users increasingly log in on their mobile phones. A majority of its more than one billion users worldwide check their Facebook pages on their phones, where the company can serve up only a limited number of advertisements.

Facebook has been trying various other measures to increase profit. This year, it introduced a way to buy gifts for friends. It is enabling application developers to advertise and pick up new customers on Facebook, and it has said that it is refining its search tools. All of these moves are potential moneymakers.

The stock slump in the last six months did not affect only retail investors. One of the principal casualties was the company’s home state of California. The state had expected to reap $1.9 billion in revenue over two years from Facebook’s public offering, but on Wednesday afternoon, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office lowered its estimate to $1.25 billion.

Some Facebook employees in California may face a higher tax bill for this year than they had expected. Voters last week passed Proposition 30, which raised the marginal tax rate for California’s wealthiest residents. For a single taxpayer with income between $500,000 and $600,000, currently taxed at 9.3 percent, the rate will rise to 10.3 percent; between $600,000 and $1 million, the rate will rise to 11.3 percent. Those who make over $1 million will pay a marginal rate of 12.3 percent.

Facebook will, in effect, offset its employees’ tax bills by withholding a portion of their shares. However, some employees may have to pay more out of pocket because the tax increase is retroactive: it applies to 2012 income. This prompted an outburst from Andrew Bosworth, director of engineering at Facebook, on his Facebook page.

“Prop 30 particularly bothers me,” he wrote on the morning after the elections. “Higher taxes are totally fair and probably called for in our bankrupt state, but retroactive taxes change the contract after the fact and feel very slimy.”

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 15, 2012

An earlier version of this post misstated the increase in the marginal tax rate for single taxpayers in California making over $500,000 or over $1 million. It is 1 percentage point on the $500,000 income and 3 percentage points on the income over $1 million — not 2.3 percent.

DealBook: Sprint Gains Greater Control of Clearwire

Warren Mell/ClearwireClearwire demonstrated its 4G modem, which uses cell signals for wireless broadband, in Las Vegas in 2009.

6:48 a.m. | Updated

Sprint Nextel has secured control of Clearwire, the wireless network operator that holds valuable spectrum, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. The filing shows that Sprint agreed on Wednesday to acquire the interests in Clearwire held by Craig O. McCaw’s Eagle River Holdings.

The transfer of Class A shares and Class B interests gives Sprint a majority stake of 50.8 percent of Clearwire. The agreement simplifies a relationship with Clearwire that has complicated Sprint’s attempts to overhaul its network. It comes as Sprint is preparing to sell a 70 percent stake in itself to the big Japanese cellphone provider and Internet company SoftBank, for $20.1 billion.

Taking control of Clearwire was not a necessity for the completion of the SoftBank transaction, which is expected to close by the middle of next year, pending regulatory approval. And it may not consist of buying out other investors’ stakes in the company altogether: one person briefed on the matter suggested that Sprint could buy the voting rights of some of its partners. But Sprint and SoftBank have also not ruled out pursuing a full acquisition after their own deal closes. Shares in Clearwire rose 1.7 percent, to $3, in premarket trading on Thursday.

Clearwire, founded in 2003 by Mr. McCaw, a pioneer in the wireless services industry, already handles some data traffic for Sprint customers. But it has long faced financial difficulty, requiring several cash infusions from outside investors. While the company focused on a wireless data standard that has been supplanted by Long Term Evolution, or LTE, it holds valuable spectrum that Sprint and its prospective new owner covet.

That wireless resource could be used to develop Sprint’s LTE data network, which would support newer devices like the Apple iPhone 5 and various Android-based products.

Building out that network is among the most important goals SoftBank has for Sprint. SoftBank’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, has devised a strategy revolving in large part around building the same sort of high-speed data infrastructure he is creating in the Japanese market. Mr. Son believes having a reliable and fast network would allow Sprint to better take on the two major wireless service providers in the United States, Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

“U.S. citizens don’t have this experience of high speed,” Mr. Son said on a conference call with analysts on Monday. “We’re going to bring that to the States.” Through a number of investments, Sprint previously had about 48 percent of Clearwire, and the right to fill seven seats on the company’s 13-member board. But without greater control over the wireless broadband provider, Sprint ran the risk of losing control of one of its most important partners.

Sprint Nextel will obtain the interests in Clearwire held by Craig O. McCaw’s Eagle River Holdings, simplifying a relationship with Clearwire that has hampered Sprint’s attempts to overhaul its network.

After Curfew: Campus Life Gains More Exposure on the Web

Since then, Jeffrie Ray, 19, who is on leave from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and his partner, Arya Toufanian, a 20-year-old junior at George Washington University, have produced 23 more “I’m Shmacked” YouTube college party videos from campuses as varied as Tulane, Syracuse and N.Y.U. to Penn State and Ithaca College.

Their popularity is evident from the stats on their “I’m Shmacked” Facebook page — over 46,000 likes — and on YouTube — more than 500,000 views alone on the West Virginia University video (which highlights among other antics, students smashing car windows, in between beer bongs, as part of a St. Patrick’s Day charity party).

A lot is packed into these three- to four-minute clips set to a wide variety of music. And it is not just girls making out (there is a lot of that), guys pouring booze over one another’s heads (and balconies), and students doing flattering albeit somewhat profane shout-outs for their college or university. Woven into the scenes of debauchery are bucolic shots of the campus with flags waving in the breeze, the football stadiums or hockey arenas filled with athletes and cheerleaders, and the local university swag shops.

“I think we are doing something positive for the schools: I have had about 30 kids say they ended up at a school because of my video,” said Mr. Ray, who is known as Yofray and who plans to finish filming “parties” at the end of this school year (he is recording video of a different campus each week), when he will move onto other campus scenes. “I want to gather videos of the sports and academic life to make them into a longer film. The students at these schools also work hard, and I want to show that, too,” he said, adding that he plans to interview professors and students about their institution’s more serious sides.

“Kids don’t want to read anymore,” said Mr. Toufanian, referring to college brochures. “Seeing a video is a much more fun way to learn about a school.” Mr. Toufanian, the business side of the duo (Mr. Ray is the videographer), has secured a two-year contract with DGI Management in New York that he hopes will help the “I’m Shmacked” brand move into other platforms, with books being one.

But not everyone sees these college videos as slightly wacky promotional tools. Just ask students and administrators at the University of Michigan, which early this month was “Shmacked” (a contrived word from Mr. Ray’s high school in Pennsylvania) for the second time (the first being last November), during “Welcome Week.”

“I was horrified when I saw it,” said Melanie Kruvelis, a junior who wrote an opinion article in The Michigan Daily student newspaper that went on to say the word “shmacked” must be “Yiddish for getting drunk and throwing away the futures we don’t have.”

To Ms. Kruvelis, who has seen students desperately take down Facebook images before their first job interview, getting caught on a video “for 30 seconds you might not even remember after shotgunning a beer” seems stupid. “It’s not my parents’ age when you could hide the party photos in a drawer,” she added. “To do this on a video that can go viral, you must have a train-wreck mentality.”

Mary Jo Desprez, the administrator at the collegiate recovery program at Michigan, which helps students who have alcohol and substance issues stay sober, agrees. “These kinds of images of partying in college limit students’ imagination of what fun can be without drugs and drinking,” she said. “It glorifies alcohol, especially as they are not just sitting casually around a keg but pouring bottles of vodka down their throat. We need to have a more complicated conversation about this on campuses, even though this is only about 1,000 of our 27,000 students partying like this, because it can resonate.”

But as one student claimed in a comment about a video, “You can’t be considered an alcoholic until after you graduate.” And then there is the ubiquitous phrase “I’m Shmacked,” shouted by students on almost every video, usually with a glass or bottle feebly in hand. As Ms. Kruvelis wrote in her newspaper piece, they are hardly referring to enjoying some “bagel toppings.”

After Curfew: Campus Life Gains More Exposure on the Web

Since then, Jeffrie Ray, 19, who is on leave from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and his partner, Arya Toufanian, a 20-year-old junior at George Washington University, have produced 23 more “I’m Shmacked” YouTube college party videos from campuses as varied as Tulane, Syracuse and N.Y.U. to Penn State and Ithaca College.

Their popularity is evident from the stats on their “I’m Shmacked” Facebook page — over 46,000 likes — and on YouTube — more than 500,000 views alone on the West Virginia University video (which highlights among other antics, students smashing car windows, in between beer bongs, as part of a St. Patrick’s Day charity party).

A lot is packed into these three- to four-minute clips set to a wide variety of music. And it is not just girls making out (there is a lot of that), guys pouring booze over one another’s heads (and balconies), and students doing flattering albeit somewhat profane shout-outs for their college or university. Woven into the scenes of debauchery are bucolic shots of the campus with flags waving in the breeze, the football stadiums or hockey arenas filled with athletes and cheerleaders, and the local university swag shops.

“I think we are doing something positive for the schools: I have had about 30 kids say they ended up at a school because of my video,” said Mr. Ray, who is known as Yofray and who plans to finish filming “parties” at the end of this school year (he is recording video of a different campus each week), when he will move onto other campus scenes. “I want to gather videos of the sports and academic life to make them into a longer film. The students at these schools also work hard, and I want to show that, too,” he said, adding that he plans to interview professors and students about their institution’s more serious sides.

“Kids don’t want to read anymore,” said Mr. Toufanian, referring to college brochures. “Seeing a video is a much more fun way to learn about a school.” Mr. Toufanian, the business side of the duo (Mr. Ray is the videographer), has secured a two-year contract with DGI Management in New York that he hopes will help the “I’m Shmacked” brand move into other platforms, with books being one.

But not everyone sees these college videos as slightly wacky promotional tools. Just ask students and administrators at the University of Michigan, which early this month was “Shmacked” (a contrived word from Mr. Ray’s high school in Pennsylvania) for the second time (the first being last November), during “Welcome Week.”

“I was horrified when I saw it,” said Melanie Kruvelis, a junior who wrote an opinion article in The Michigan Daily student newspaper that went on to say the word “shmacked” must be “Yiddish for getting drunk and throwing away the futures we don’t have.”

To Ms. Kruvelis, who has seen students desperately take down Facebook images before their first job interview, getting caught on a video “for 30 seconds you might not even remember after shotgunning a beer” seems stupid. “It’s not my parents’ age when you could hide the party photos in a drawer,” she added. “To do this on a video that can go viral, you must have a train-wreck mentality.”

Mary Jo Desprez, the administrator at the collegiate recovery program at Michigan, which helps students who have alcohol and substance issues stay sober, agrees. “These kinds of images of partying in college limit students’ imagination of what fun can be without drugs and drinking,” she said. “It glorifies alcohol, especially as they are not just sitting casually around a keg but pouring bottles of vodka down their throat. We need to have a more complicated conversation about this on campuses, even though this is only about 1,000 of our 27,000 students partying like this, because it can resonate.”

But as one student claimed in a comment about a video, “You can’t be considered an alcoholic until after you graduate.” And then there is the ubiquitous phrase “I’m Shmacked,” shouted by students on almost every video, usually with a glass or bottle feebly in hand. As Ms. Kruvelis wrote in her newspaper piece, they are hardly referring to enjoying some “bagel toppings.”