Lest we focus too much on our own digital lives, Jack Vale is here to remind us that dogs need a way to connect with their pals, too. The YouTube star, known for his prank videos, is one of the co-founders of DogLand, a social media app for dogs that is currently looking to crowdfund venture capital.
DogLand offers its users a number of different services, all catered to dogs and their owners. Users can post pictures with their dogs, connect with other dog owners, and find local dog-friendly businesses. “We wanted to do something special for our dogs,” says Vale, who serves as DogLand’s CMO and its official brand ambassador, in an introductory video, “and the rest of the dogs in the world.”
The DogLand app is currently available for free on the App Store, and it currently has more than 65,000 users; however, BetterPet, the company behind DogLand, is looking to expand its flagship product. To that end, it has launched a campaign on StartEngine, where it hopes to offer equity in exchange for funding.
BetterPet understands that Vale’s social media influence is a strong asset in its quest to find funding. To help promote Dogland, Vale has launched a prank video in which he blames loud farting noises on his dog.
“DogLand is not just for dogs — it’s for the people who love them, too. And we want the user, to share in our success,” said DogLand CEO Jonathan Kolker in a press release. “That’s why we decided to crowdfund our financing: to be the first major social network primarily funded by the people who use and love it.”
A social network for dogs may sound like a ridiculous app idea pulled straight out of Silicon Valley, but BetterPet’s plan makes sense, and the dog owners who have downloaded DogLand so far seem to be enjoying it. As for the dogs, we hear they’re wagging their tails in delight.
Tyler Oakley can soon add “documentary film star” to his list of accolades. The 26-year-old YouTube celebrity and LGBT advocate is the main focus of a new documentary from Awesomeness Films called Snervous, set for a limited theatrical run in winter 2015.
Directed by Amy Rice (HBO’s By the People: The Election of Barack Obama), Snervous follows the life of Oakley during the summer of 2014 when he traveled across the U.S., UK, and Ireland for his Slumber Party tour. Snervous will hit select theaters in December 2015 (though there’s no word yet on which venues those will be). The documentary will then be released across all major digital platforms thanks to Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
“I feel so lucky to partner with Awesomeness to bring my story to the big screen,” Oakley said in a statement, as reported by Variety. “I started out making videos as a way to connect and am thrilled by the opportunity to share one of the most exhilarating years of my life.”
The truth campaign is dedicated to ending smoking among teenagers, and in 2015, connecting with teenagers requires a working knowledge of Internet culture. For that reason, truth has recently launched several videos centered around online video stars and image macros, and its latest series is no different. It has launched the #BigTobaccoBeLike campaign, in which Vine stars imagine the ways the tobacco industry celebrates its massive profits.
The first #BigTobaccoBeLike ad features Viner Jerry Purpdrank, who has more than 8.6 million followers on Twitter’s six-second video platform. In the first half of the video, Purpdrank gives an excuse for “social smoking,” saying “it’s strawberry flavor, bro.” He then cuts to his impression of a tobacco executive, who is making it rain. The point is a simple one: No matter why you smoke, Big Tobacco gets paid.
Several more #BigTobaccoBeLike spots, starring Viners like Logan Paul, AlliCattt, and Christian DelGrosso, are also part of the campaign. Truth plans to air the 15-second videos during episodes of The Walking Dead on October 4th and 11th.
Some critics may criticize the new #BigTobaccoBeLike videos for unsubtly pandering to their target audience; the campaign’s hook is taken from a popular Vine conceit. Truth’s last meme-filled PSA received a lot of negative feedback, both within YouTube comments and on Reddit. At the same time, however, there’s ample evidence suggesting truth’s ads work. In the first two years after the campaign’s launch, it was responsible for 22% of youth smoking declines, according to a study in the American Journal of Public Health. And its online video campaigns often receive massive view counts and exposure; its “Left Swipe Dat” music video, for example, has gained millions of hits on YouTube.
Given its connection to Vine stars, #BigTobaccoBeLike should roll up plenty of views as well. For that reason, like them or not (and really, aren’t they kind of fun?), don’t expect truth’s meme-ified videos to go away any time soon.
Amazon is getting a new title about one of the most popular action heroes of recent literary history. And it has some names attached that are ready to blow the show up. The streaming video service has picked up an untitled series, based on the Jack Ryan books by Tom Clancy, from executive producers Michael Bay and Carlton Cuse.
Variety reports Amazon has given a series commitment to the Bay-Cuse Jack Ryan project, rather than first ordering a pilot and soliciting viewer feedback as is tradition for the digital video giant. The project was originally announced by Deadline as various entertainment outlets like Netflix, A&E, and Fox bid on the series. The number of episodes for the Jack Ryan Amazon show hasn’t been announced at this time.
The project will be produced by Bay’s Platinum Dunes brand, alongside Skydance Media and Paramount TV. Cuse, known for his work on Lost, will lead the Jack Ryan series with fellow Lost showrunner and writer Graham Roland. Cuse, Bay, and Roland will all executive produce the new Amazon show along with Platinum’s Brad Fuller and Andrew Form and Carlton Cuse Productions’ Lindsey Springer.
Clancy originally introduced the character of Jack Ryan in 1984 in the novel The Hunt for Red October. Over the course of Clancy’s books, Ryan, an ex-Marine, begins working for the CIA after a term as an investment banker and eventually continues on to become the President of the United States. Five feature films have been made about Ryan to date, all from Paramount, with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine all portraying the character at some point in their careers.
No release date for the unnamed Jack Ryan Amazon series has been announced as of yet.
[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly and monthly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given timeframe. You can check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every weekby clicking right here.]
It’s time for another monthly installment of our Tubefilter Top 100 Most Viewed YouTube Gaming Channels Chart and it may be time to crown a new gaming channel king.
Chart Toppers
Felix Kjellberg‘s PewDiePie channel is still in the unfamiliar position of being in second place this month. The newly-crowned reigning champion of gaming on YouTube is officially TheDiamondMinecart. The world’s most viewed gamer on YouTube hails from Great Britain and despite a slight 2% decrease in his monthly view count, still scored nearly 394.5 million views on the month for Queen and country. In a semi-distant #2 spot is PewDiePie, who ended the month with almost 302.7 million views.
PopularMMOs is next up in its increasingly familiar third-place spot. The top gaming channel from the U.S. closed out August just shy of 276.8 million views. JackSepticEye is up next in fourth place. The Irish gamer’s view count saw a modest 1% increase in views on the month to close it with more than 259.9 million views.
And rounding out the Top 5 is markiplierGAME. The second U.S.-based gamer in the Top 100 amassed more than 234.2 million views on the month.
Top Gainers
The honor of one of our Top Gainers this month goes to Samgladiator.
The young American male gamer with a penchant for Minecraft has had a channel since way back in 2008, but just recently found his stride. On August 20, 2015 Samgladiator hit 200,000 subscribers. Just five weeks later, the channel ballooned to more than 660,000 subs. And its view count has seen a similar trajectory. Videos like this Minecraft roleplay of a first day at high school have racked up several million views, helping the channel to a 130% month-over-month increase in views, almost 35.9 million views on the month, and the #70 spot on the worldwide gaming chart.
Channel Distribution
The Top 100 Most Viewed YouTube Gaming Channels this month amassed in aggregate a total of 7,013,738,837. Here’s a look at the distribution of those channels broken down by the most-represented YouTube Multi-Channel Networks on the chart:
Maker Studios:25 channels in the Top 100, with TheDiamondMinecart at #1.
Machinima:18 channels in the Top 100, with VanossGaming at #6.
Fullscreen, OmniaMediaCo: 9 channels each in the Top 100, with Fullscreen’s popularmmos at #3 and Omnia Media’s iHasCupquake at #26.
BroadbandTV: 5 channels in the Top 100, fernanfloo at #10.
Divimove: 4 channels in the Top 100, with elrubiusOMG at #8.
DEFY Media, Jetpak, XMediaDigital, ZoominTV: 2 channels each in the Top 100, with Defy’s Smosh Games at #40, Jetpak’s Seananners at #74, XMediaDigital’s TheBrainDit at #33, and ZoominTV’s JackSepticEye at #4.
And here’s a look into the distribution of this month’s Top 100 by country of origin:
United States: 32 channels in the Top 100.
Great Britain: 16 channels in the Top 100.
Brazil, Spain: 7 channels each in the Top 100..
Canada, Russia: 5 channels each in the Top 100.
Ireland, Japan, Ukraine: 3 channels each in the Top 100.
Chile, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands: 2 channels each in the Top 100.
Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Finland, France, Romania, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Vietnam:1 channel each in the Top 100.
OpenSlate is a video content analytics platform that tracks more than 250,000 YouTube video channels and measures their ability to attract, engage and influence an audience. By providing one consistent measure of quality – the SlateScore™ – OpenSlate helps marketers, producers and agencies hone their online video marketing strategy.
Tiltify is the first online platform created to allow gamers to crowdfund for the charity of their choice using their favorite games.
Sick of low-quality videos filmed vertically on iPhones? Sony has a new channel that will satisfy you. The consumer electronics company has launched a YouTube channel called Sony4K, on which it shares videos filmed in the ultra-high definition 4K format.
For those unfamiliar with 4K resolution, all you need to know is that it is equivalent to 2160p, which is twice as sharp as the 1080p resolution that has become the standard for high definition videos on YouTube. This means that videos shot in 4K look amazing, no matter if they feature ballerinas or winemakers or girl skateboarders. You can find short films about all three of those subjects–and several others–on Sony’s new channel. As with all 4K videos, an important caveat applies: If you’re not watching on a top-of-the-line PC, you’re probably going to receive a juddery, uneven viewing experience.
In an introductory video, Sony4K host (and online video veteran) Brett Erlich runs through the sort of videos viewers can expect to find on the new channel. In addition to stunning short films, there will also be playlists that curate HD videos from across YouTube and instructional videos that teach viewers how to use their fancy 4K cameras. After you watch this eye candy, remember to floss, or you’re going to get eye cavities,” quips Erlich.
The Sony4K channel is essentially one big advertising campaign for Sony, which sells its own line of 4K cameras and other high-definition equipment. The goal, as it seems to the observer, is to say “ultra HD videos are extremely cool. Now buy one of our cameras.”
One wonders if Sony4K will stray into even higher definitions. After all, 4K is so 2014. 8K is the new hotness. Get on it, Sony.
Tyler Oakley‘s entree into the elite group of YouTube-stars-turned-book-authors won’t officially occur until October 20, 2015, when his upcoming Binge is set for public release. But until then, Oakley is whetting the appetite of his rabid fans with several sneak peeks. The 26-year-old YouTube celebrity, with more than 7.6 million subscribers on his channel, is releasing excerpts from his upcoming collection of personal essays on the writing community and story-sharing site Wattpad.
At #220 on Amazon and it’s not even out yet. That’s cray.
By releasing portions of Binge on Wattpad, Oakley is drumming up excitement for the full-length version of the book, which is currently available for pre-order (and doing quite well on Amazon, ranking in at #220 of all books on the site even before its actual release). Oakley released an excerpt from the book chapter “The One That Got Away” on Wattpad on September 28, and less than a day later, it already boasts 40,000 reads. The digital star and recent Streamy Awards host will release one more section of the chapter every Monday for the next three weeks.
Yousef “FouseyTUBE” Erakat, a recent Streamy Award winner for Show of the Year, is one of the premier pranksters on YouTube. For that reason, when Quest Nutrition wanted to film a prank video to promote its pumpkin pie-flavored protein bar, it turned to him for some help. In an epic, 18-minute video, FouseyTUBE invites six YouTube stars to join him for a collaboration, only to greet them with a pie to the face instead.
The six YouTube stars who serve as FouseyTUBE and Quest’s victims are Joey Graceffa, Rebecca Black, iJustine, Jacksfilms, Mike Rashid, and Claudia Sulewski. One by one, they are all invited into a studio, where they are told they are filming a video that matches the tone of their individual channels. iJustine, for instance, is asked to complete a pie-based challenge, while Graceffa is sent to a fake game show all about pie.
Given FouseyTUBE’s penchant for pranks, his six victims probably knew what sort of treatment to expect. That doesn’t make it any less funny, however, when they inevitably take their respective pies to the face. We also get some slow-motion replays, which are even funnier. The entire video can be viewed on Quest’s YouTube channel. It is broken down into six sections, and viewers can switch between each iteration of the prank thanks to annotations embedded within the video.
FouseyTUBE’s antics are a good start, but Quest doesn’t believe the pie-in-the-face treatment should be reserved for YouTube stars. Instead, it has launched an app on which pranksters can share pictures of their pied friends. If your pals are the sort of people who would enjoy that kind of practical joke, well, we can only tell you to be vigilant.
CollegeHumor’s latest foray into the TV industry has arrived. The comedy website’s new series, Adam Ruins Everything, makes its premiere tonight (September 29th) at 10 PM EST on TruTV.
Adam Ruins Everything received a pilot order from TruTV in February 2015 and was picked up for a full season three months later. It is based on a series of videos on the CollegeHumor website and YouTube channel. In each installment, host Adam Conover, who is described in a press release as “that friend who knows a little bit too much about everything and is going to tell you about it…whether you like it or not,” leads viewers through a discussion on a certain topic. By the end of each episode, if Conover is persuasive enough, that topic will be ruined for you. Sorry.
If you’re curious about what sort of tone to expect, you can watch the Adam Ruins Everything YouTube videos. The most famous one, concerning engagement rings, has received more than 6.5 million views since its Valentine’s Day release in 2014. TruTV has also shared a preview for its newest show:
Adam Ruins Everything is one of several TV projects CollegeHumor through its Big Breakfast studio, which it launched in 2014. Big Breakfast has created a pilot based off the long-running web series Jake and Amir, and a late night MTV talk show, Middle of the Night Show, is in the works as well.
The first season of Adam Ruins Everything will consist of 12 half-hour episodes. You can check it out on TruTV, which is available in approximately 89.7 million American homes.
YouTube is making it easier for shopaholic viewers to fulfill their cravings and for its marketers to sell their featured products. The world’s largest video-sharing site announced on September 29, 2015 that its “shoppable” video format is being tested now and through the fall and will be available for advertisers sitewide via Google’s Adwords in the coming months.
The shoppable videos make use of in-video menus dubbed Shopping ads that are reminiscent of YouTube current annotations feature, except slicker and seemingly automagic. As products are presented on screen, viewers can click a small icon in the upper-right corner of the player to see which items appear in that particular video. Viewers can then click on those items to travel to external webpages, where they can obtain more information and purchase the featured products. Here’s how that interaction works, in gif form:
For YouTube, the shoppable videos are the culmination of several changes it has rolled out over the past few months. The shoppable video platform is built with the new “card”-based annotation system YouTube launched in March, and it extends the existing TrueView for Shopping format that arrived two months after that feature became available to creators.
Here’s how advertisers will initially utilize YouTube’s Shopping ads, straight from Google:
To use Shopping ads, retailers simply connect their Merchant Feed and product ads will be eligible to show as one of the shopping ads alongside the video. Shopping ads on YouTube enter an auction similar to Shopping ads on Google search and are selected based on a variety of signals including contextual and audience relevancy.
Similar to Shopping ads on Google, advertisers only pay when a user clicks on the ad.
Shopping ads on YouTube provide a new revenue stream for creators, providing another way to monetize product-focused videos.
Shoppable videos are obviously of the most use to brands and advertisers, but if expanded, the feature could be incredibly relevant for a certain brand of creators. For “haul girls” and “unboxers” who highlight specific products–sometimes with support from brands–shoppable annotations provide a new revenue stream. The new cards could also make it easier for creators to cite “cite their sources” so to speak. For example, a YouTube beauty guru giving a smokey eyes tutorial can use a Shopping ad to credit the exact kind of mascara highlighted in the video, as well as potentially financially benefit from anyone who uses the Shoppable ad to purchase the product. Also, by extending the capabilities of its shoppable videos, YouTube could keep up with other companies, like Amazon, that have already worked with online video stars to create a product recommendation engine.
Regardless of what features may or may not be added to Shopping ads on YouTube, however, creators still stand to benefit. If the format is successful, that means brands and marketers will devote more advertising dollars to YouTube, which means more revenue and an increased ad rate for the site’s channel partners.
For more information on the Shopping ad format and regular updates about Google’s marketing innovations, keep an eye on the tech giant’s Adwords blog.
Netflix is no longer constrained to land-based devices. The streaming video-on-demand service partnered with Virgin America to bring free in-flight streaming to Netflix subscribers on select aircraft.
Starting September 29, both new and existing Netflix subscribers flying on Virgin America planes equipped with ViaSat WiFi will get free internet access to stream their favorite Netflix content. Subscribers can access streaming titles through their mobile devices. Virgin will have ten ViaSat-equipped planes entering service in the next few months, and the #NetflixOnboard partnership lasts through March 2, 2016.
“Netflix and Virgin America are both known for their focus on innovation and for shaking up their respective industries – so we’re thrilled to team up to bring the best in technology and entertainment to the skies,” said Abby Lunardini, Virgin America Vice President of Brand Marketing and Communications, in a release. “We hope our guests enjoy the offering and know that even President Frank Underwood [of House of Cards] can’t get entertainment this good onboard Air Force One.”
“As WiFi becomes more ubiquitous, it’s going to be increasingly possible for members to enjoy Netflix wherever they want,” added Bill Holmes, Netflix’s Global Head of Business Development. “We’re delighted to partner with Virgin America to extend the joy of Netflix to our members at 35,000 feet.”
Netflix is not the first streaming service to take to the skies. And Virgin America certainly isn’t the first airline to pay attention to digital video selections for travellers, either. Back in May 2015, Amazon partnered with JetBlue to bring its Instant Video collection to JetBlue passengers. Additionally, airlines like Southwest, Alaska Airlines, and Delta boast their own in-flight streaming video services (most of these offer a limited but free viewing selection accessible through mobile devices or in-plane screens).
You can learn more about the Netflix-Virgin America deal on Virgin’s site.
On his YouTube channel, avid gamer Olajide “KSI” Olatunji speaks his mind in a free-flowing, rapid-fire style. Despite his non-stop chatter, though, KSI has reserved some additional thoughts, and he has shared some of them in a new book. He is the author of KSI: I Am A Bellend(titled I Am A Tool in America), which is currently flying off the shelves shortly after its release in both the UK and US.
Like most of the other works that have emerged from the recent trend of book deals for YouTube stars, I Am A Tool is a non-fiction book that attempts to translate its author’s digital voice into a more traditional media format. In KSI’s case, this process also involves throwing out burns at anyone in his path. “Admitting you’re a tool is the first step to salvation, and now KSI is determined to purge the Internet of the tools that have turned it into an electronic circle of hell,” reads the Amazon description for the American version of the book. “No one is spared, as he takes down fellow YouTubers, trolls, paedos, Tinder catfishers, and Nigerian scammers in an all-out assault on the online universe.”
I Am A Tool, published by HarperCollins, arrived in the UK on September 24th and made it to the US five days later. KSI marked the book’s release with a video on his YouTube channel, in which he describes his struggles publishing a book. “As a YouTuber, I like to make something and put it out,” he says. “That’s just how I am: Make, put, make, put. So that’s why it’s annoying, because I never get ahead of anything…This was done, and I had to wait a couple of months for it to just come out, and it was pissing me off, but finally, you guys! I’ve got the book.”
Given the book’s sales, KSI will soon have even more reasons to thank his fans. I Am A Bellend Tool has been a top seller on Amazon on both sides of the Atlantic. If you’re a KSI fan who would like to add to the book’s already-impressive sales figures, you can do so right here.
