Ryan Higa, a young college student has held the number 2 most subscribed channel position on YouTube for around 2 years. This year with over 1.6 million subscribers Ryan made the leap to become the #1 most subscribed channel on YouTube and that makes him an Online Video Leader.

In this video Ryan talks about what it took to get there and what he likes about YouTube.

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At the NewTeeVee Live 09 event I ran into Brian Walsh CEO and Founder Castfire and ask him about his audio and video publishing and syndication platform and what it can do for web video series producers to help them with their video advertising.

One of the coolest things about Castfire is that it allows content producers to deliver dynamic ad insertion into Video RSS (Video Podcasts) as well as serve cross promos and branding in Quicktime. And it works on all other flavors of online video including Flash, Windows Media Player and ever other video file format.

From interactive agencies to sports teams like the Red Skins to PBS’s KCRW to individual online video content creators Castfire has a great service for episodic branded content.

Who gave you permission to post on the Internet? Who will you need to get permission from in the future? How much money will you have to pay to post or serve video in the future? Who do you want telling you what you can and can’t see on the Internet? Why should you be able to share your thoughts with other people on the Internet? Why should there be net neutrality?

Why should you have an open Internet?

If this is something you care about join others who are fighting to keep the Internet Open at Open Entertainment.org .

More and more I will run into Independent Filmmakers that are taking their scripts, breaking them up into segments and turning them into web series. I think this is great but I warn against repurposing one media to another. Remember they did take radio programs and put them on TV.

That said, Frank Krueger has been playing around in web video for many years and has a new web series called The Darkness Descending launching soon. I caught up with Frank at a poolside cocktail party at Digital Hollywood in Santa Monica this week and got the scoop on what he’s trying to do.

(Side Note: I wanted to test out the iPhone 3GS video exposure so I let things get a little crazy with the sun on Frank’s face.)

One of my favorite online video web series is Chad Vader. But what I like more than the series is that the Chad Vader guys Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan have turned their fan art into a business and are making a full time living producing online videos for themselves and for others.

I caught up with Aaron and Matt in Vegas during Blogworld and got a quick interview with them on my iPhone G3S Video Camera and they told me how Lucas hired Matt to do the voice of Darth Vader.

(Side Note: The mic works the opposite of the Flip camera so I’m really loud and Aaron and Matt are quiet. - Sorry)

What’s old is new again with social media. This last week Amp Energy drink launched the Before You Score iPhone application to appeal to guys looking to pick up the ladies. The App is pure sophomoric fun in true bad taste and feels like a Saturday Night Live sketch come to life as an iPhone App but it has created a storm of anger in the social media community causing parent brand Pepsi to apologize for the App.

Controversy builds interest and in this case it has got the app a lot more attention than it would have if the haters had not said a word but this is nothing new.

Several years back religious groups use to get upset and protest Hollywood movies that didn’t go along with their beliefs. By protesting a film they raised awareness and drove more paying ticket buyers to the theaters. Eventually these groups learned that their efforts to publicly denounce a film that didn’t fit their beliefs only benefited the movies they disagreed with so they stopped drawing attention to the flicks they hatted.

At several cocktail parties at Blogworld this week I heard both men and women talking about the B4 U Score AMP iPhone App. That never would have happened had the haters not been so vocal.

Pay close attention to your paying customers. Give them what they want and engage them in your conversation but keep in mind there are people out there that will never like your product. They will never recommend your product and more importantly they will never buy your product. But if you can polarize your audience and get the very people that hate you to publicize your product and bring it to the attention of people who may like or even love your product, then you need to love the haters.

AMP, Energy Drink, AMPUP, B4 You Score, iPhone app

Tim Kring, creator of “Heroes” on NBC, talks about crafting stories that transcend a single medium, spreading across television, books, games, and online graphic novels. Interviewed by Scott Kirsner, editor of CinemaTech and author of “Fans, Friends & Followers.”

Kring will be part of the Boston Book Festival on Oct 24th, 2009. http://www.bostonbookfest.org

Paid or Advertising Supported? What kind of iPhone App should you develop?

Greg Yardley of Pinchmedia explains the determining factors in deciding whether or not you should develop a paid iPhone App or an Ad Supported iPhone App.

“Got Milk?” the campaign that can do no wrong has spilled the milk on their latest branded entertainment extravaganza that is FAR OUT. The “Got Milk?” folks have created a new branded entertainment viral video campaign in conjunction with a new sweepstakes targeting High School students. But after 6 days on YouTube their videos that are getting National TV ad spends only have 23,610 views on YouTube. You know the video sharing site that High School students watch instead of TV?

The problem is that the “Got Milk?” TV commercials are driving traffic to the Branded Entertainment site, milkquarious.com that has it’s own video player. That’s great, but that costs them money AND when you go there to watch the Milkquarious Videos which by the way are FUN in an Austin Powers / Shaft kind of way YOU CAN’T GRAB AN EMBED CODE!!!! WTF????

What kind of Rookie mistake is this? Or does their ad agency make more money by doing it this way? I am soooo confused. Why would you try to have a viral campaign that is using TV to drive traffic and then send viewers to a site that doesn’t jack up your YouTube views?

If you want to reach teen age high school students go to YouTube. If you are going to spend money on TV advertising to target High School students have your adds go to a site with a YouTube video and make sure there is an embed code that your visitors can embed and place on their sites. This way you will get more views on YouTube and more High School students will see your video with millions of views on YouTube and you will get more and more views, more people embeding your videos and more Milkquarious LOVE!

Got It?

Oh, and the “Got Milk?” people also didn’t tag their videos with the words, “funny, sexy, hot, or girl” which the videos seem to have and will get you more views.

The sad thing is, after a post like this the people who could use my help the most will never hire me but hopefully you, my loyal blog visitors, friends and family will in some way benefit from this rant and use the information to get more view of your viral video!

She travels the country writing, producing online videos and acting on TV, in films and in online video web series. The above video is a PSA she co-wrote for Stand Up 2 Cancer / Her Energy called THE BOOBY SCARE Featuring Alyson Hannigan, Emily Deschanel, Kat McPhee, Minka Kelly and Jaime King.

Her blog says, “she currently is writing Private High Musical, a half-hour scripted comedy pilot for MTV based on a web series that she wrote, produced, and starred in for 60Frames Entertainment. In addition, she has several other writing projects currently in development for web, TV, and film.”

Her first entertainment industry deal was at the age of 20, when she sold Project MyWorld, a web interactive travel series, to DirecTV. But since then she taken a little break and only received over 50 million views of her internet videos that she has written, produced, and/or starred in.

Her online credits include: a starring role in Big Fantastic’s / Warner Bros. first original series, Sorority Forever, a daily show on Cosmopolitan.com, a weekly sketch comedy show on Heavy.com, and shorts with TVGuide.com, Reveille, MSN, MySpace, Atom.com, and more. She will soon be appearing in the Electric Farm series Woke Up Dead opposite Jon Heder.

In the feature world, you can currently catch her in Comedy Central’s Senior Skip Day. She recently completed supporting roles in the indie drama Pound of Flesh alongside Malcom McDowell, Deep In The Valley with Scott Caan and Denise Richards and Dewana’s Bridal alongside Jaime King, Selma Blair, and Jamie Lynn Sigler. In the fall of 2009, She went to Denver to play one of the leads in the indie comedy The Frankenstein Brothers.

In 2008, she won a Spike TV Guy’s Choice Award and made CNN’s Most Influential Viral Videos of the Year list for her online videos. She has also been featured in USA Today, Maxim, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, People, Christian Science Monitor, and been a guest on shows like CNN, Fox and Friends, Red Eye, MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Insider, and Entertainment Tonight.

In addition, She has hosted the red carpets of The Golden Globes for MSN, The Young Hollywood Awards for Showtime, and The Grammys for CBS.

And her name?

Taryn Southern

Look out Hollywood. Here comes Taryn Southern, Online Video Leader.