iPod batteries are exactly the same technology as your cell phone battery and your laptop battery: lithium-ion. It is the best battery available for those devices, and no company can overcome the aspects of that battery technology any better than any other company. Any device you have with that battery type is subject to the same behavior: It will slowly die over the next 2 to 4 years, and when it does can vary. 18 months is a worst case scenario that happened to these guys who happened to be creative with a video camera. Would they have made a video if their Samsung phone or Sony laptop battery had given out in 18 months? No, because they are not such ripe cultural targets as an iPod.

More information here:
How to prolong lithium-based batteries

BTW - Use care in letting yourself be influenced by the media. First, you allowed a street video to make you think that iPod batteries might be different than the batteries in other similar devices. Second, you used one corporation's brand ("Viral Video") as if it was a normal English phrase, which means the marketing program of that company has achieved success.