Who Are the Top 5 YouTube Stars?

YouTube and online video has continued its growth as broadband and higher internet speeds not only become faster and cheaper on fixed line but also as mobile broadband continues to spread globally with smart phones such as the iPhone and new platforms such as the iPad providing hardware that makes viewing online video compelling even on the move.

This has lead to the emergence of star video bloggers on social media channels such as YouTube to obtain and grow traffic numbers that make your eyes bleed.

What are some of the latest growth statistics for online video

• Facebook is the fifth largest provider of  videos
• Facebook users upload 20 million videos a month
• Online video growing 4 times faster than TV
• 12-34 year olds are the vast majority of the video viewing population
• More than 177 million US internet users watched video content in June
• 90% of 2009 -2010 broadcast TV was on the Internet

So with this availability of online video there are some emerging stars and some might even make you laugh. (These are the top ranked YouTube stars including traffic and banner ad revenue estimates according to research performed by Tube Mogul an online video aggregator and distributor )

Ranked Number One

Shane Dawson (Channel known as “Ask Shane & Others) who provides sketch comedy in a teenage sort of way (not my type of content) but with 431 million views that are aggregated from his weekly online videos on YouTube you can’t argue with the numbers and he certainly is providing content that is hitting the mark with his target audience. Apparently his estimated earnings last year from ads was $315,000

Ranked Number Two

Dane Boedigheimer (also known as the Annoying Orange) This is clever comedy starring a talking orange with very short videos often under 2 minutes that certainly made me laugh. Views to date number are in excess of 349 million. Estimated earnings last year $288,000

Ranked Number Three

Philip Defranco with a YouTube Channel called “The Philip DeFranco Show” that provides parody and satirical content and with 248 million views in the last year must be  doing something right. Estimated earnings in the past 12 months approximately $181,000. (I was able to watch this channel for about 60 seconds)

Ranked Number Four

Ryan Higa with again a sketch comedy YouTube channel (seems to be a consistent theme emerging here). Ryan’s YouTube channel’s last 12 months has seen over 206 million video views and his estimated earnings are in the region of $150,000.

Ranked Number Five

Lucas Cruikshank with his YouTube channel titled ‘Fred” which seems to be targeted as a Children’s online TV channel.  Total views in the past year 200 million with estimated earnings of $146,000

So with YouTube only starting in 2006 it is amazing to see these traffic numbers and to view these emerging YouTube stars and their creativity.

I am certainly looking forward to the next 5 years to see what this web world will look like and where social media will be.

In tomorrows article we will look the next 5 ranked YouTube stars.