Maria Sansone’s PopTub Daily and the Future of Amateur versus Professional Content on YouTube

Remember Maria Sansone of YahooTV’s The 9? Yeah. The one that was flirting with me just two years ago?

She left the Yahoo building. But don’t worry. She’s back on a video site people watch. She’s got PopTub Daily on YouTube, and it’s already showing itself as fairly topical. For starters, she reviewed my Recession Commuter. And for me that’s like waking up and finding Gene Hackman and Charles Grodin in my kitchen making me coffee. I’m like woooooooooo!.

Here’s the episode. Now lest you think my review of this show is all about me, I need to point out why it’s going to succeed.

1. First, it has Maria Sansone. She could read the phone book and we’d watch her perky style. As long as it doesn’t feel “outside looking in” the show will do well. In other words, it should review what is “highest rated” and not just “ripped from TV” stuff that happens to get a lot of views that day.
2. It’s quick and it catches you up on interesting trends. I’m adding it to my RSS reader so I don’t miss anything. Like the Rhett and Skimpy Supernotes thing. This was only days old when she reviewed it, which tells us they were lucky or tape the show more frequently than weekly.
3. Third, Maria Sansone is that girl in highschool that you wanted to date, but knew it wouldn’t happen. But she still made you feel like it was possible. Oh don’t get me wrong. We still love our Daisy Whitneys.
4. Sxephil disses PopTub and other professionally produced shows because it’s the “grassroots shows” that YouTube should focus on because “we are the future.” (See 1:50 of this clip). Never mind that PopTub reviewed his show in one of the first episodes. This reminds me of the quote, “I think there is a world market for about five computers.” Thomas J.Watson. In those few words, the YouTube top 10 most-subscribed kid just gave the kiss of death to himself and other top YouTube amateurs.
5. Finally, and most importantly, I think that the needs of early adopters of YouTube is radically different of those mainstream audiences that are learning how to subscribe and watch regularly. That’s not yet reflected in the “most subscribed’ content because it takes a very long time to overthrow the leaders. As new people join, they naturally go to the “most subscribed” to decide what to watch. Eventually, watch for the well-produced comedy channels (Mediocrefilms, Waverly Films, Wicked Awesome, etc) to overtake the individual guys with their cameras.

Note- that certainly doesn’t mean the 15 minutes of fame for amateurs is up.

In fact, Sxephil will probably have a half million subscribers by early next year. But while the early community was about the amateur with a webcam, the late adopters want stuff that looks a little more like other entertainment venues. The current rat pack of most-subscribed will survive and flourish if they can develop thick skin, reinvent themselves, and grow with their audiences. The winning amateurs will be those that rely less on the “I’m the everyday guy like you- let’s be friends” and more on the “hey this is short, funny, topical and clever content… join the party.”

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