Youtube Flashback: August 2007 Top 100

Picture from 2007 curtesy of Wayback Machine

What were you doing in August 2007? Were you even on Youtube either as someone who watched the videos of others or were you one of the few who uploaded clips and got listed in this Top 100 from August 5, 2007?

Look at the numbers these people had just 4 short years ago and compare them with the millions of subscribers that the Top 100 Most Subscribed have today and you can see the astounding growth this website has generated. How many of these channels do you remember and how many are still actively uploading videos? Each channel can still be found by the links provided unless they have been closed which is the case for some of them. Others just have not been updated in years.

1 smosh 148,992
2 lonelygirl15 97,821
3 esmeedenters 70,844
4 miaarose 68,787
5 WilliamSledd 66,743
6 HappySlip 62,098
7 thewinekone 59,781
8 LisaNova 59,764
9 CBS 57,144
10 BaratsAndBereta 54,542
11 JamesNintendoNerd 54,114
12 Brookers 53,693
13 kevjumba 47,251
14 GayGod 46,685
15 LittleKuriboh 45582
16 TheHill88 45,127
17 geriatric1927 44,479
18 universalmusicgroup 43,518
19 linkinparktv 42,705
20 FueledByRamen 40,914
21 NBC 39,259
22 blamesocietyfilms 38,070
23 digitalfilmmaker 35,965
24 derrickcomedy 35,483
25 boh3m3 35,255
26 Daxflame 34,712
27 Blendtec 34,586
28 ashleytisdale 33,847
29 mYcheMicALroMaNcE 33,396
30 renetto 29,418
31 impytherap 29,039
32 charlestrippy 28,828
33 ysabellabrave 27,612
34 communitychannel 27,593
35 lassegg 26,945
36 abbegirl 26,930
37 RonPaul2008dotcom 24,379
38 vlogolution 23,505
39 Danielbeast 23,431
40 Emmalina 21,678
41 ItTakes5IVE 21,439
42 smpfilms 21,192
43 warnerbrosrecords 20,748
44 MadV 20,704
45 littleloca 20,194
46 rockongoodpeople 19,996
47 EclecticAsylumArt 19,937
48 mrpitifulband 19,761
49 sxephil 19,735
50 terranaomi 19,641

51 FilthyWhore 19,200
52 Katers17 19,040
53 MarkDayComedy 18,854
54 francisstokesdotcom 18,626
55 RyanLeslieTV 18,521
56 Blunty3000 18,467
57 valsartdiary 17,798
58 nalts 17,675
59 drewtoothpaste 17,477
60 cutiemish 17,448
61 NHLVideo 17,260
62 liamkylesullivan 17,072
63 prettyrickyvideos 16,978
64 ItsJustSomeRandomGuy 16,936
65 IanH 16,672
66 wantlieswiththat 16572
67 StevenTsapelas 16,450
68 davidchoimusic 16,288
69 NBA 16,239
70 mystoandpizzi 16,227
71 boburnham 16,107
72 BadBoyRecords 16,095
73 DiGiTiLsOuL 16,038
74 JustinSandercoe 15,768
75 phatfffat 15,689
76 ParisHilton 15,621
77 judsonlaipply 15,551
78 NeilCicierega 15,532
79 LazyLionsProductions 15,247
80 BBCWorldwide 15,217
81 jonastko 15,174
82 MediocreFilms 15,123
83 Paperlilies 15,019
84 NoHoGirls 14,718
85 Rubix89 14,713
86 ArtieTSMITW 14,680
87 GiR2007 14,615
88 JiveHonky81 14,549
89 gemmers19 14,483
90 roadrunnerrecords 14,387
91 YouTube 14,293
92 hoiitsroi 14,289
93 Rabix99 14,139
94 macpulenta 14,028
95 spricket24 13,674
96 MysteryGuitarMan 13,579
97 anafree 13,463
98 underoathmusic 13,329
99 peron75 13,206
100 citizenchong 13,051

Right at the top is of course smosh who remain right there, showing incredible staying power. In August 2007 Anthony and Ian had garnered an incredible 148,992 subscribers and had taken over top spot from the rapidly declining lonelygirl15. Now smosh enjoys the support of over 3 million subs. HappySlip is right at the top along with Lisa Nova's channel. Kevjumba was in 13th spot with only 47K subs?!

Charles Trippy had a mere 28,828 subs and CTFxC was still a long way off (this was pre-Alli and obviously Ms Speed and soon-to-be Mrs Trippy had a great effect on Charles' life). Natalie Tran's communitychannel had only 27,593 subscribers at this point.

Whoa. Way down at number 49 is sxephil (Philip DeFranco) with 19,735 subscribers. These days Phil gets 19K a week in subs across his many channels and is hovering near the Top 10 Most Subscribed. Katers17 is still making videos on her main channel but does daily vlogs as katersoneseven and is temporarily located in the states from her native England. Uncle Nalts is up there at number 58 with only 17K subs.

Looking towards the bottom of the list there is spricket24, MysteryGuitarMan (with only 13,579!) and peron75 which is Michael "WhatTheBuck" Buckley's 2nd channel.

If you're looking at these numbers in surprise, don't be shocked. Youtube has grown, mutated and grown again exponentially during the intervening 4 years and who knows who will still be around in another 4 years.

One thing to point out is that this list does not show a Ray William Johnson, Nigahiga or Fred. Some of the most popular Youtube channels today were active in August 2007 but were not even listed in the Top 100. Food for thought. There were many who gave up trying to be successful on Youtube back at this time thinking that the window of opportunity had already closed when actually it was being pried open even further. Look at the numbers in this list again and tell me you don't see potential for the future with this website.

Shay Carl Behind the Scenes At Vidcon

In case you don't know, a little gathering of online folks has been taking place in L.A. known as "Vidcon" and here Shay Carl and the Shaytards are vlogging about the shindig. Shay and the family are going to be on stage (hopefully Shay won't throw Rocktard out into the audience like last year) and if you watch the video you will likely see all sorts of the top Youtubers. First there's KassemG, Michael Buckley from his "What The Buck Show", iJustine, Tobuscus, MysteryGuitarMan, CTFxC (Charles Trippy and Alli Speed) and many others passing by the camera.



Now don't you wish you had bought a ticket? It unfortunately sold out in early May. If you're thinking ahead to Vidcon 2012 it is still a long way away and the location and other stuff has not been worked out, but you better plan on buying your ticket as soon as they become available.

TheWillofDC: Discusses The CES Youtube Superstar Panel

If you are not familiar with TheWillofDC, he does a Youtube show where he lists the "Winners and Losers" each week on the Top 100 (and was involved at VidCon 2010). In this video he talks about an article he wrote for tubefilter an online video news source. Will provided them with some articles in 2010 and they gave him a pass to the CES Conference happening now in Las Vegas where they unveil new tech stuff. What Will covered for tubefilter was the "Youtube Superstar Panel" which comprised Philip DeFranco, iJustine, Joe Penna (that would be MysteryGuitarMan to you and me) and Freddie Wong. All are highly successful youtubers who I gush about on this blog from time to time. Will goes through his article about the panel in the video below:



I had noticed that several of the youtubers I stalk, follow, had made the trek over to Vegas (although I thought Phil had gone to Vegas with his guys to set his editor Matty up with hot babes: PhillyD Pimps Out Matty) and I was watching iJustine in Vegas and her sister itsmejennae doing the whole Vegas thing (I think Jenna may have a slight gambling problem). But like I said, I didn't know they were going to do a panel or anything. Watch Will's video as what they said in the panel about connecting with your audience on Youtube, scheduling etc is very good advice. If you are uploading content on Youtube and hope to "make it" as a Youtube star, listening closely to what those who have made it is good advice. Too bad there's no video of the panel.

As a side note most of those involved will probably be going to VidCon 2011 in July so you may get a chance to bend the ear of a successful youtuber. I've read that iJustine, Wheezy Waiter, Shane Dawson, Charlie McDonnell (aka Charlieissocoollike) and tons more will be attending and giving speeches.

NOTE: I just found a great article written by Megan O'Neill covering the panel discussion at CES: Secrets Of The YouTube Superstars and at the bottom of the article there's a 37 minute video showing them all talking about Youtube. Great stuff.

Check Out This Channel Right Now! The Partners Project With Shira Lazar

Here at the spacious offices and corporate headquarters of Bradshaw's Blog (okay, there's no "we", there's just me) we are always on the lookout for interesting new channels and there's a brand new channel that you will be subscribed to shortly. It is called The Partners Project and it has been up and running only since around December 7, 2010 but it looks like it should be a winner. They have been posting some great videos featuring several of the top Youtubers like Shay Carl, iJustine and in the video below, one of my favorites, MysterGuitarMan.



The host is the tres pretty Shira Lazar who has done some work with the The Huffington Post, CBSNews.com and now she's got this Youtube gig. She's also a Canadian girl (from Montreal) so I gotta give her props.

In the above video for the Partners Project channel she interviews Joe Penna (MGM) about his Youtube career and what brought him to the level of success he's enjoyed to this point and what the future holds for him on Youtube and elsewhere. Actually I think this was a first-rate introduction to one of the most popular people currently on Youtube and look forward to seeing more interviews with other famous youtubers. So far Shira's interviewed Shay Carl, iJustine and The Annoying Orange. One cool part about the channel is that along with interviews with these top youtubers, the channel has them giving some "Youtube Pro Tips" on how to be successful (along with behind the scenes stuff from the interviews). Really think this might be a nice addition to what we get on Youtube and help viewers get to know their favorite youtubers just a bit better.

You can follow Shira on Twitter @shiralazar (I'm already stalking, I mean, following her) and you might want to check out her website for even more about Shira: shiralazar.com. If you want to follow the people behind the cameras for Partners Project, they are Damon Berger (@damonberger), listed along with Shira as Creators and Executive Producers and Producer Christian Bretz (@xtianbretz).

They're promising a new interview every Thursday and more Pro Tips every Tuesday, so this may be a channel you might want to keep an eye on. As I mentioned, the Partners Project just launched in early December and they've already been subbed by 8,343 (including me). Jump on board now cuz this channel will have 100K subs before you know it.

Project For Awesome Videos Raise $100,000 For Various Charities

In case you missed it, the Project For Awesome was reportedly a big success and they uploaded the show to Youtube (you can see all the videos at p4a. They've uploaded 83 videos so far which is great. This first one shows DeStorm, MysteryGuitarMan, and Freddy Wong all playing and singing well.



Really check out the videos on the P4A channel (link above) as there are interviews with all the top Youtubers like HotFor Words, the Vlogbrothers, Shay Carl, KassemG & NicePeter, Michelle Phan, Tay Zonde, Michael Buckley and iJustine (just to name a few!).

If you want to see some of the behind the scenes stuff, check out this Shaytards video:



It starts with Shay and various Tardlets having some fun and then Shay takes us behind the scenes of the Project For Awesome live show. And iJustine uploaded this one on her 2nd channel. Lots of wellknown Youtube people all through both of these videos.



At last count the Project For Awesome website showed that over $97,000 had been raised for various charities. Great job by all involved. If you want to know more about the Project For Awesome, check out the website and maybe bookmark it for next year's event.

MysteryGuitarMan's Animated Video Drawn By His Fans

First off, I love the song "Hit The Road Jack" originally done by the one and only Ray Charles (did MysteryGuitarMan steal Ray's style of sunglasses?) but once again MGM comes up with a cool and creative video.



This is so different from what you usually see on Youtube, except from MysteryGuitarMan of course. He got a bunch of his subscribers to send in tracings of several pictures of himself and pieced them all together to make up this video, so I guess this is actually a collaberation video made by MGM and 3,000 others. If you sent in a picture and it got used, congrats, it will be seen by a million viewers.

And he also has his contest for his Sony PSP and all you have to do is leave a comment in the comments section of the video. Just say what you favorite color of t-shirt is and you're in.

MysteryGuitarMan Does Sir Duke: One Note At A Time

Always loved this song originally by Stevie Wonder that MysteryGuitarMan does on the kazoo among other instruments.



The song is called Sir Duke and it was released by Stevie Wonder in 1976 as part of his album Songs In The Key Of Life.

Loving MGM's version using pretty much only a kazoo and guitar. Also, those red MysteryGuitarMan t-shirts look so awesome in the video. It's always interesting to see how he goes about making these very creative videos with his green screen which you see at the end.

Plus, if you missed MGM doing his collab with Ian and Anthony from Smosh, you need to check it out.



And yes, that guy at the end was freddiew in a cameo.

MysteryGuitarMan's Videos All Contain The Same Element: Awesomeness!

One of the most creative people on Youtube right now is MysteryGuitarMan. Pick just about any of MGM's videos and you will be saying "How the hell did he do that?" Like the title of this post says, MysteryGuitarman's videos are all the same: awesome.



I've been subbed to him since he first elbowed his way onto the Top 100 a while back and watched his rise up the charts and right now he has just passed the 1.5 million subscriber mark which is pretty sweet - 2 million is just around the corner. Not only is MGM creative, but he is also very prolific, pumping out new videos all the time. What I also like to point out is that his videos are visual interesting, but the music is great too.

He routinely gets about 17K new subscribers each week (how many youtubers wish they had 17,000 subscribers? Show of hands?) and is in 6th spot of all Youtubers. He has a long way to go if he is going to catch 5th place Smosh who are about 60,000 subs away from the 2 million subscribers level themselves, but even though MGM is pretty far back of (currently 4th place) Fred, I think that both Smoth and MysteryGuitarMan will pass the boy wonder shortly.

2010 Supernote Winners! Team Beard Wins By A Whisker

The tabulations are done, and the results are in. According to Rhett&Link's website, the winners are: Team Beard! Congrats to Wheezy Waiter and his team of beardlovers who dethroned last year's champs, Shay Carl and the Shaytards Rebellionites. It turned out to be super-close.



According to Rhett&Link, the number of Supernotes submitted by Team Beard was 18 less than Shay's team, although Wheezy's bunch won by a fair margin. Below are the full results:

Rank

Team

1

WheezyWaiter (Team Beard)

2

ShayCarl (ShayTard Rebellionites)

3

Shane Dawson (Team Shane)

4

LiveLavaLive (Project LavaNote)

5

MysteryGuitarMan (Team MGM)

6

Meekakitty (Team Stache)

7

VlogBrothers (Team Nerd))

8

iJustine (Team iJ)

9

RhettandLink (Team Mythical Beast)

10

Smosh (Team Smosh)

11

Charles & Alli (Team CTFxC)

12

DeStorm (Team DeStorm)

13

David Choi (Team D-Choi)

14

Brittani Louise Taylor (Team BLT)

15

WhatTheBuck?! (Team Buck)

So ends the 2010 Supernote Contest - a big congrats to Wheezy Waiter and his team mates for an impressive showing! Now you have to wonder... will Shay try to reclaim the crown next year?

MysteryGuitarMan And We No Speak Americano In Bali

Holy jumpin! What's MysteryGuitarMan doing in Bali? He's over there shooting a video for a womens' group and at first it looks like he won't be able to post a music video, but being thousands of miles from home won't stop MGM.



In case you're wondering, the song he did was We No Speak Americano (the original version is available on iTunes). Plus that is one epic kite! I had to check on Amazon to see if they had that boat kite but they didn't have the exact one, but if you want to see some other cool kites, check out New Tech Kites.

As a side note (music joke lol), MysteryGuitarMan is about to hit 1,5 million subscribers - probably by next week. He's currently in the 6th spot on the most subscribed list and about 500K back of Smosh, but he will probably catch Fred before is passes Smosh. I will be posting an updated Top 100 Most Subscribed list in the next few days or so.

Congrats To iJustine: Hitting 900,000 Subscribers And iPad Giveaway

She was one of the first youtubers I personally subscribed to when I joined YouTube and she's still one of my favorites. She's the one and only iJustine and she has hit another milestone, getting her 900,000th YouTube subscriber on her main channel. What should she do when she hits the one million mark?



To celebrate, IJ is giving away a free ipad to one of her Facebook friends, and all you have to do to win the ipad is go to her Facebook.com/ijustine page and click like and she will randomly draw the name of one of the 305,000 people who like IJ. My name is on that list some where, but I never win at these things so I won't hold my breath.

iJustine In Fast Company Magazine

She also mentions that she and another youtuber that I am subscribed to, Mysteryguitarman, are featured in Fast Company magazine in an article called The New Faces of Social Media which you might want to pick up.

iJustine Juggles? Since When?

It looks like IJ has secret talents she hasn't told anyone about! I had no idea she could juggle. And the girl's got skills! I've been able to juggle for years but have not progressed beyond the 3 ball juggling stage and iJustine can juggle four?! So I wrote in the comments that it was on. I will learn how to juggle 4 even if it kills me - no I will NOT be juggling knives, chainsaws or anything with which I could do myself a mischief, but I will juggle 4 balls. hmmm. Maybe I'll even make it a video response to her video when she posts herself juggling, but that's just between you and me, okay?

But the bottom line is that iJustine is on track to hit one million subscribers and deserves kudos for all the work she's done. If you haven't subbed to her yet, do it! She's quirky and fun and you probably won't be able to guess what she's going to do next - well, probably dancing somewhere is my guess.

MysteryGuitarMan's Bohemian Rhapsody

MysteryGuitarMan is known as one of the better youtubers and if you don't know who he is, you should. He has almost 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube which puts him 6th on the Top Ten Most Subscribed List. And he's very creative with his videos. This one is pretty good as MGM plays the much requested Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. A true classic and longtime favorite of Mike Myers' fans.

But MGM puts his own little spin on it with the slide whistle. This could have been terrible, and I was expecting an "okay" video, but I really liked it. So creative and it didn't seem like a cover version, but MysteryGuitarMan's own performance of the song. If you want to see more of his videos, there's a link at the start of this post to his Youtube channel or you could check out these other MGM posts on Bradshaw's Blog.