The New Rules of YouTube (2027)

16:50I want to bring this one up because we talked about it on the last podcast. You know, you called me the view maximizer, right? Yes. My job is to grow channels views. That's what I do. And that's what my team does. But I do think we kind of reached a point. I think even the biggest creators would admit this as well, where we all got so obsessed with just maximizing views that we kind of forgot how important a returning viewer is and how important, you know, building a relationship with your audience is. And I think you've got like the stats on this, but I think you mentioned like, what, 80 % of this was subscribers, which is your typical episode is much less.

17:26Colin Rosenblum:Much less. Especially if an episode, you know, does get caught a bit by the algorithm, does scale to 500 ,000, a million views, then obviously like we're reaching a lot of new people. So I have this analogy I use for this because I think creators got into this like super kind of dangerous mindset of being terrified of experimenting, terrified of doing a video that was for them and their audience as opposed to like the biggest possible video. And I understand that. And I think, you know, at times I've probably been one of the people pushing that agenda of my focus. But I've always said there's this analogy where it's like if you have, let's just use a soccer analogy.

18:03Like if you have a striker and he's scoring, you know, five games in a row, six games in a row, and then he has a game where he doesn't score. You know, he might still play well, but he doesn't score. You're not going to immediately bench that player and say you're never playing again. And I think the YouTube algorithm is quite similar. And people get so afraid of it, thinking that it's going to punish me for trying something or it's going to relegate me to the dungeons of no views. And it's like...

18:28Colin Rosenblum:And also that performance from that player could have been potentially more valuable if you're to look at like the game tape, quote unquote, to see like, did that person maybe not make an assist, but like the second assist? Like how much work did that player actually do during that game to win? Exactly. So I think it is a bit of a trend I'm seeing where I think, not to say that being still very like strategic with what you make isn't important, but I think every channel, Like if you want to make a video every one and four, one and five, where it's like, look, this is not something that's like following all the rules of YouTube and being the most optimized tile thumbnail, but it's a video that we want to make.

19:03And I watched this video and I thought I knew you guys better off watching it. I was like, wow, that was really cool. That was honest. That was vulnerable. And, you know, I think that relationship is very important to create.

19:14Samir Chaudry:I think one thing I will say about this video that's, that was very different for us is it was something we couldn't not make. does that make sense like we had no choice but to make this video we have this video was like a therapeutic video and and we just it was an honest thing we had to say there's no strategy behind it this was the least strategic thing we did there's no business case behind this it's just we had to say something and and i think um we are entering this era of youtube which i have continued to call the abundance era. 20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube every single day.

19:55Samir Chaudry:Every video that I think about is probably being made right now. That is like a strategic video, right? Every video is being made and it's either being made by another creator or it's made by AI or it's made by someone prompting. It's made by somebody is making that right now. So the only thing you can think about or should think about is like, what's my thing to say? What do I actually have to say? Because hopefully you find a unique perspective that only you could share. Now, the scary thing about sharing your own unique perspective and your own honesty is that what if nobody cares? What if nobody watches?

20:33Samir Chaudry:And then I think we have to go back and go, when you make a video that's very honest and personal, it is insane that 120 ,000 people watched it. Yeah. It is insane. Like that's just us saying something about our life. It's potentially

20:47Colin Rosenblum:one of the most incredible things that's ever happened to us. Like if you really think about our entire lives, like that we just said something extremely niche about who we are as people and 120 ,000 people watched it in a month. Yeah.

20:59Samir Chaudry:It's mind blowing. I also want to ask you this question because I've been having this conversation a lot about what is a lot of views now? you know what i mean like what is a lot of views like if we're looking at this world where there's more content than ever people are settling into channels more like what are we as a community uh optimizing for what's a lot of views what's a big audience what's the what's the success metric if you're a small creator i i always say like if you're if you're breaking 50 or 100 000 views on on a long form video, you're in the top 0.01 % of creators that have ever existed.

21:37Like that is to me still a big number. And it's something that just feels like when you get past 50, just feels like, oh, that's like - That's a lot of people.

21:46Colin Rosenblum:That's a stadium full of people. Yeah. This conversation gets really like interesting because of how much, almost like, because of view maximizing, right? And because of even like dubbing and like international audiences, it's like, sometimes it's hard to look at a video on the surface and be like, is this good just because it has a lot of views? Like, I think in my opinion, like three or four years ago when you saw a 20 million view video, you were like, whoa, like that feels rare. I see 20 million view videos all the time now. You know, and we've worked on them. Like we just showed a, you know, 31 million view video from a client.

22:19We've, you know, so many videos that we worked on this year that passed 10 million views with clients. It feels like that's happening more and more. So yeah, the kind of idea of what is a high view count is kind of weird now. one thing I think is true though is like satisfaction we talked about that a little bit last time satisfaction as a metric YouTube don't give us that metric so therefore we don't track it we don't measure it and we don't judge by it I bet you the satisfaction for that video even though you maybe didn't teach people lots of things or whatever I bet you the satisfaction for that was high because viewers were like oh wow I feel like I actually got to know Colin Smear you know so I think about this a lot with our clients not only like view counts I think about it as like what does this say about us what does it say about the brands like I love when And we might make a video at Rebel and the comments are all like, only Rebel could do this.

23:02And there's that kind of real like feeling around the thing. Yeah. That can feel bigger than just like a huge view count can.

23:09Colin Rosenblum:I think public view counts are becoming irrelevant for the reason that you just said. When you see a 20 million view video now, you've seen it a million times. We got a short with 44 million views. I think 120 ,000 views on this video that we made. I don't think it matters. I don't think it played into the decision for a lot of people to click and watch considering it's majority subscribers for us.

23:28Samir Chaudry:For me, actually, I'm, maybe this is so counter, but I am turned off by a 20 million view video. Like, I am, I'm hesitant to click on it because I'm concerned at what made it so, like, why is this so mass appeal?

23:43Colin Rosenblum:Traditionally, I would have always thought that YouTube needs to hold on to public viewership. But now the more that these videos are being watched on TV and it feels more like Netflix where viewership is not public, I'm starting to sway towards maybe YouTube should get rid of public viewership. Maybe it doesn't matter. That made me feel a little bit... Patty's about to throw up. Yeah. His own company is view maxing. Yeah, tell me what you think. So I think from my perspective the reason that would make me nervous is just because of how much I use that to understand trends and what is the signal basically.

24:18Colin Rosenblum:Patty, I'm trying to put you out of business. Okay. Patty's like... Oh no.

24:23Samir Chaudry:So that's interesting. Expand on that, that you use views to understand the signal. And I want to contrast that with, you know, now we're starting to talk about YouTube on TV, but the implications for the future. With YouTube on TV, it's starting to feel more like a Netflix or another streamer. There's different signals for that than views. We actually oftentimes don't know with those. So let's talk about like signals of trends and what the implications are for the future. the fact that that graph is probably only going up in terms of YouTube being watched on TV? Yeah. What is that? Yeah. So I think it's one of those things.

25:02It is hard to measure, but when we think about that video we showed a while ago from Red Bull, like I think something I noticed with that video, and I don't know if you noticed this, but you said that like so many of your friends were like telling you about this video, right?

25:13Colin Rosenblum:And that's why I watched it. And that's why you watched it. Similarly to if there's a show on Netflix I need to watch. There's so many 20, 30 million videos that have been uploaded in the last year that none of us have seen. and we have no, no one's ever talked about. They've just, you know, gone into the ether. Like, what was that? There's some videos though that seem to just get this kind of public discourse around, you know? And it's very similar to when there's a Netflix show or whatever. It's like, you know, my mother's calling me saying, have you seen this squid game thing? You know, a few years ago.

25:39It's insane. You know, I can't believe it. And I'm like, you know.

25:42Colin Rosenblum:Viewership and cultural relevance are two totally different things. Yes. And it's all about that kind of like regrettable watch time versus like watch time that makes you feel, of wow, I just spent time doing something or watching something that was really special. I don't want to make too much of a big prediction, but I really think as we look at some of the data we've shown, some of the examples we've shown, like you can't get away with just a great title on thumbnail with no substance anymore. And I feel like you maybe could two or three years ago. And I'm sure people will hear this and disagree because they're like, I just watched a video and it was terrible, but I -

26:14Samir Chaudry:But substance is subjective. Yeah.

26:16Colin Rosenblum:It's a bit subjective. I want to know what you think about public viewership. So I like it from a trend point of view of being able to, from a strategist perspective of being the person who gets, channels more views. I like to look at it and say, that gives me some signal of what's working. But I think, and this speaks to all of our point, that signal has weakened over the last year, two years, because of, you know, a lot of things like dubbing and things like that. And that doesn't mean that international views aren't still really important. They are. but you know there could be the same video and one video has dubbing and one video doesn't and the video with dubbing has four times the views so you might intuitively be like that's a better video or that's like a more popular video but it's like well it's just because the other one didn't have dubbing you know it depends what you're optimizing for like if i'm selling a product in america you know views overseas aren't as important to me as you know english-speaking views in america so i think it matters a little bit about what you're optimizing for but i look at the the views for a lot of signal in that sense.

27:15And I think taking that away, I think people will find out other ways to find like formats and what's working, but we are in this, this interesting stage. Like one of the other points I was, I was going to bring up, it's actually another video, which I'll show you here. So we got this one here. Atheist goes to Christian church for the first time. So this was someone who went through, um, one of our accelerator cohorts last year. And at the time he joined the cohort was like a three, four, 5 ,000 subscriber channel. Um, and then And throughout the cohort, they were able to ideate this with my team, came up with this format, which I think is really interesting.

27:47Like, you know, there's so many reasons that's viral, like just kind of classic, interesting story you have to click to answer. The point I was going to make here is this video was made. And I remember telling this creator, and I remember my team telling this creator, you've got to keep digging. You've struck gold, keep digging. And over the course of the next six months, this video is basically remade with different different churches with, you know, different situations, different religions. And I think the reason that happens, this is to tie us all together here, is because of public view counts.

28:20Because everyone else seeing, damn, that video did really well for that small channel. Let me double down on it really quickly and let's steal it or let's, you know, adapt it for my channel.

28:28Samir Chaudry:Oh, you're saying other channels made it? No, he made it. Oh, he made it. The reason he made it is because of the point I was saying to him, which was like, hey, channels are going to double down really quickly on your stuff. There's this sort of talking point creators used to have, which is like, I don't want to over milk something, which I think is very valid and fair. But I always make the talking point of if you don't milk something, someone else will. And like someone else will double down on this format and get the sort of growth and success from it.

28:52Colin Rosenblum:But wouldn't it be better if the viewership wasn't public? Because less people would double down on his idea. And he still would get all the data that he needs to make the decision to make this again. He'd still have viewership, he'd have average view duration, click-through rate, all the things that we care about, returning subscribers versus new viewers, he'd still have all that data for himself. It might actually award originality more.

29:15Samir Chaudry:Yeah. It would definitely create more originality. Yeah. Because I think it would play a lot into the audience's decision-making. I actually disagree.

29:24Colin Rosenblum:Like, I personally, I won't click a video if it has too few views. That's a problem for me. Yeah, yeah. So occasionally, you know, YouTube will send you a video and it has like, If you were too high, I was like 240 views. And I'm like, that's YouTube trying to just slot someone in here. I'm not interested in that. But anything above like 10 to 20 ,000 in that range, I'm like, I'm game. It does not matter to me if it has 10 or 20 ,000 or if it has 50 million.

29:49Samir Chaudry:So I think the other thing about public viewership too and optimizing for views, I think what you said is correct. It's like, what are we optimizing for as YouTube creators? Because, you know, I only saw this because you tweeted about this. This never came across my feed. This is a successful series, but there's this other conversation around cultural relevance and brand relevance. You mentioned Michelle Carey. Michelle Carey is very relevant to the YouTube ecosystem. Sean Evans, even more relevant to the broader cultural ecosystem. him. And, you know, a lot of times, even if we look back at like Casey Neistat in his heyday, his viewership was amazing at that time for what he was doing, but it wasn't astronomical.

30:32Samir Chaudry:It wasn't Ryan Trahan, dude perfect. But I think sometimes as creators right now, you know, optimizing purely for views is a dangerous game because you might get lost in the cultural relevance conversation. and to have cultural relevance is like, what is my story beyond views? So like Sam Ekholm is a great example. He's a awesome creator. I would bet a lot of people right now are hearing about him for the first time. How does he get elevated into the broader cultural relevance conversation? He makes stuff like, Cleo Abram makes somewhat similar stuff to him or they're in the same category. Like he could be in the broader conversation.

31:11You know what I just thought about when you were saying that, which I think is such a, it's made me think of such an interesting point. I'm not going to name the creator but I was on a call with the creator a few months ago with I'm just going to say between 50 and 100 million subscribers so one of the biggest creators in the world

31:24Samir Chaudry:okay and this creator gets lots of views you know very well known huge audience kind of talking to me about like look I've noticed that like you know I'm not converting as well as I want when I sell things I want to kind of build a better connection with my audience I don't think I have that he's kind of solved the viral equation but he hasn't solved the broader thing and you know I'd watched a few videos before, you know, beforehand that I was like, these were good videos. They were well made and whatnot. I was just sort of asking him a bit about himself at the start of the call, just like friendly, not even trying to figure anything else.

31:54And he's like, you know, I did this, you know, I dropped out of school to do YouTube when I was 15. It was a huge risk. It was all these things, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wow, like admirable, like that took a lot of guts and you know, wow, what a story. And you know, he's telling me if it's a story and he's just like such a interesting, likable young creator. and then I was like does your audience know that and he goes no I'm like why like almost that personal connection I feel like sometimes we just get so caught up in this like optimized quick viral everything perfect people watch humans at the end of the day and I think like when when the ability to make big spectacle videos has been democratized to a certain degree like I think personality just takes over that's why people like Ryan people like Michelle I think have that culture of relevance and I was actually just saying to my friend just on a phone call earlier and we were just talking about you know this podcast and you know some of the things we might talk about and I was just saying you know if you flashback to like what 2018, 2019 Mr.

32:56Beast made a video I think it was cutting a table in half with a plastic knife so I was just joking I was like if a kid did that today he would spend two weeks cutting his table in half you know destroy his life and get five views because I don't think anyone would really care It's like, that doesn't feel like the sort of video that would work right now. We're just in a different meta, different world.

33:16Samir Chaudry:I want to talk about also a format versus a show. When you've pushed people to build a show or how much you're pushing people to say build a show. Because something that I look at on YouTube right now is that with more viewership on television, with more of what I just said, that you need some element of a brand story beyond viewership, having the casing of a show is a great way to do that. Hot Ones is obviously the leading example, but we're seeing this more recently with, you know, Drewski has his dating show, Could Have Been Love. And it's a show. Quinlan Blackwell has Feeding Starving Celebrities.

33:50Samir Chaudry:That's a show. Speed Launched Speed Goes Pro. That's a show. Even when he goes and does like live streams in Africa, he makes it appointment viewing. He makes it a thing. And I think that's the only way for creators to cross that threshold of cultural relevance now is making your thing a thing and making it a show.

34:07Colin Rosenblum:I think using this creator, Evan, as an example, this video, Atheist Goes to Christian Church for the first time, that's a format that he replicated again and again. And if I find that video algorithmically or in a vacuum, I'm like, this guy makes videos. This is a video he made. But if that has an intro and it's called like Finding Meaning, and there's a show logo, and this guy's whole purpose is finding meaning.

34:32Samir Chaudry:In his life, yeah.

34:33Colin Rosenblum:in his life, then I am more inclined probably to go look for the next episode and to remember the next episode and to see him as someone different than just, this is a kid making videos about religion. And maybe that doesn't have to change in the packaging as much as just like intro, style, how it's made.

34:49Samir Chaudry:Title graphic. Because I think you start, yeah, you start with a format. I think it starts as a format and then it goes into something. I even think, I don't know all of like Michelle Carey's story, but I'm pretty sure it would have started with like, oh, this is my format. I try things. I tried this thing. And it's like, oh, wow, there's actually a show here and before you know it there's like a name and there's a you know you're looking forward to every episode and whatnot and a big distinction i always make is like it's top gear not breaking bad you know it's not necessarily like a ongoing deep narrative as much as it is individual episodes that have a format so they kind of become the same thing and there's actually another example of this i'll show really quickly this is a fascinating example this is a channel golden kobe family a dog channel went through our accelerator in 2024 I think with 11 ,000 subscribers at the time of joining.

35:35Now I think close to a million, if not over a million. And he had this video, Golden Retriever meets his new sister, puppy sister for the first time because he just adopted this new Doberman. And I saw that and I was like, you should do that again. So we did a video which was like first week together. And then I remember him making this point or saying this thing, which was like, okay, well that's done well twice now. And it did great. It got over 2 million views during the cohort. I remember it went viral during the cohort, which is such a wild experience. But I remember him saying, well, you know, that's that done then, you know, because naturally you can't get a new dog every week unless you're unethical, right?

36:08You're not going to just adopt a new puppy every week, like just to make content. But I was like, no, you're thinking too literally. Like, I think the format is dog meets like vulnerable other dog. That's kind of the format. Like, oh, just like an innocent little puppy, your dog meeting it, the interaction. So this creator now, they're almost their entire channel has been built around this format. Like golden retriever meets completely shut down rescue for the first time. Like there's a limited amount of dogs you can adopt. There's an unlimited amount of dogs that you can make a video around and, you know, showcase in your videos.

36:37So like, that's an example of, I think maybe creators traditionally have been in this mindset of like, I come up with ideas. I come up with new ideas, new ideas. I need five or six different buckets of content I make around. And the thing I keep seeing is just these creators who, honestly, their channel is a format. And then over time, maybe that transitions into a show, like the Golden Colby show.

36:57Samir Chaudry:Yeah, so when do you advise this to get turned into a show? I think it has to feel like a natural evolution as opposed to like a big launch. We as humans always want to just do these big like, cut the ribbon, like rip the bandit off. It's this now. But I think it becomes something where it's like a bit of branding mixed in, you know, consistent format. And before you know it, it becomes like something that just feels like a show. I think it's a slow shift as opposed to like an immediate thing. What happens in this video? Like how can it be 15 minutes long?

37:27Colin Rosenblum:you know what i mean like yeah i feel like the story's over if i'm being honest yeah i look at

37:31Samir Chaudry:it i'm like short i mean i want to see it happen because i want to see it cute but i think once i see it i'm good how is this 15 minutes long well now you're exposing me for not having watched the video this this this creator went through the car a long time ago great great person his name is jj and you know he's got a great team now that helps him with these these types of videos that do a great job but you know when you look at these videos and when i've watched these videos in the past. The story behind the rescue dog, like what's happening, their interactions. It's not just purely their meeting.

37:58It's like, it's a whole story around this like kind of beautiful thing, which is the fact that his dog is incredible with other dogs and kind of bring dogs out of their shell. So it becomes almost like a transformation. This dog that's afraid of other dogs meets this, you know, lovable golden retriever. And that's the story.

38:15Colin Rosenblum:We're also seeing creators with shows distribute those shows on other platforms. So making money by syndication Yes. The shows showing up on Netflix or Hulu or Tubi. So there's also like, as you really continue to grow and some of these channels are seeing significant viewership, like there are opportunities to put your shows on other platforms.

38:33Samir Chaudry:I looked at how Amazon Prime Video did this with Jimmy. And obviously Beast Games, number one show on Prime Video right now. It's the signature show. They've invested a ton of money into it. But part of that is they've brought on Jimmy's videos onto Prime Video. But they are segmented and categorized. so there's one that's like Mr. Beast insane competitions Mr. Beast sports competitions and they're all different shows but the formats have been organized into shows and I think the other example is Jesser is now on Hulu balling out with Jesser but it is his YouTube videos repackaged into a show yeah and so again if we look at like the democratization of voice has happened YouTubers can tell great stories that capture people's attention it doesn't require Hollywood production studios.

39:19Samir Chaudry:But when abundance happens, when there's so many of us and we're all being watched on the same screen and there's limited space, marketing matters a lot. And that's what a show does. A show changes the nature of how it's talked about, how it's perceived, and the recall of it. Totally. And I think a point I'd make on this as well, that it's about the optionality of having that opportunity to make a show. Like you can do that. You can do that with YouTube now. You know, I still think we're not quite there in terms of pure episodic, multi-show narratives. Because all the things we're talking about now, they still feel like individual videos that are built into a show format.

39:55Colin Rosenblum:That has to do with the platform too. The platform is not set up to bring you from episode to episode. It's set up to send you the next thing they think you will find the most satisfactory. But I think also on that point, it's like, there is still a place for creators who just make incredible individual videos. I think Rebel is an example where I don't think there's like the Rebel show. It's just like Rebel are known for doing these incredible, like human defying, like, you know, spectacles and, you know, feats. And I don't, I wouldn't sort of say, oh, we're going to make that into a, you know, a show as much as it's like, well, almost because we have the opportunity to do that, because we can break through because in that placement on TV where there's two videos, like there's a high chance, maybe we're going to be able to get there for a lot of viewers.

40:39I think it's still a great opportunity for creators that can do that. to still focus on individual videos. But I think it's interesting is maybe like, you know, that video has 8 million views, which is like insane, but maybe a bit unrealistic to think about like, you know, a dog channel getting 25, 30 million views every video. Like, so it's kind of their way of being able to build something strong with momentum is maybe a show. Like that's not 20 million views every time, but maybe it's like two or three million views an episode.

41:05Colin Rosenblum:Do you think there's a future where I open up YouTube on my TV and instead of titles and thumbnails for singular videos, They're all titles of shows and thumbnails for shows. Similar to a Netflix. Yeah. What do you think? I could see it as a beta test that they try for certain people, but I think it may not be in their best interest because at the end of the day, they do just want you to find the next video that you find the most enjoyable, not the video that comes from the creator you might be watching in that moment. I think it would make sense to surface shows like that, that you already watch, in my opinion.

41:47If they already know that you watch Challenge Accepted and there's a new episode, I could see that kind of being surfaced or displayed in that way. But YouTube has built its platform on the kind of re-organic discoverability of like, I think although we're talking about how great shows can be, I think there's a counterpoint, which is like, does it become a little bit more gatekept then? It's like, these are the shows that already exist. And like a new creator starting out, they kind of grow by coming up with a great individual idea. It's kind of the funnel kind of goes, you ideate lots, you come up with lots of ideas, you try lots of things, most of them fail.

42:18This thing works, you try it again. Oh, now it's a format. And then over time, now it's a show. But if it's only shows being like displayed on TV in different places, like how do you find that initial like testing ground where you're like almost pilots? I think that's like -

42:31Colin Rosenblum:Yeah, I believe the beauty of YouTube is being there for the rise. The, you know, watching Jimmy when he has far less subscribers and he's making Minecraft videos or watching Ryan when he's doing commentary videos or Michelle when she leaves BuzzFeed and just starts experimenting or even for our audience who has been through the many waves of us and now gets to have a different lens with what we...

42:52Samir Chaudry:Yeah, I like the fact that one channel that I love that I think does as well is Chris Williamson and Modern Wisdom. Modern Wisdom is a show on his channel. It's a podcast that he hosts. But then occasionally he'll do a vlog. And it's just like... And they do well. And they do really well. Yeah. And I... That's like your... That's our video. Right. That's this again. Right. There's an amazing graph that Nielsen put out about the most watched shows from 2020 to 2025. Mostly all of those shows were not produced in 2025, which is incredible. Wow. But one of those shows is The Office that's been off the air for 13 years.

43:28Samir Chaudry:And as we see creators come to TV, like The Office is one of those shows that has permission. You get on an airplane, You open up what they have and you're in a paralysis of choice. Like The Office is probably what you're going to watch. And I think a lot about how do you create that. I think on YouTube, one of the very few channels that has that is Good Mythical Morning. Comfort watching, trust, 3 ,000 episodes of one show, permission. Like that to me is like a very impressive feat. But it's not to say it's the only path. it's just like when i think about longevity and brand building i think a lot about the office that is wild when you think about like if i was to go on an airplane and just think about the maybe four or five shows that would i would be looking for you know the original uk office came out in 2001 yeah you know the u.s office parks and recreation these are yeah they're they're sort of like brands that have been around and you just have that comfort of like i know this is going to be good yeah yeah maybe that's what youtube needs you know we have this situation where you go onto YouTube and you don't get that feeling of I know this is going to be good.

44:32You get this like crazy discoverability, which is why we all love it. And it's why we're all sitting here is because of the YouTube algorithm's discoverability, being able to put us in front of people, which is crazy, like 118 ,000 people, like, you know. But I think maybe the difference is you're not getting that like comfortable, like I know what I'm getting. This is the thing I want to watch that you get with like a series and a brand that has been built over time. So maybe the future is a mixture of both.

44:56Samir Chaudry:I'm curious if you could leave us with like some formats or like a list of formats that you know is working on YouTube right now. This is a format that's been going for YouTube like 100 years of X. We sat down with a YouTube channel that we absolutely love called Speed. They did 100 years of camping gear. Are there certain frameworks and formats that you're seeing right now that are just kind of, these are the ones that are working? Every. Every. So every something. So going back to this creator here, this creator, obviously, I've given a bit of backstory on him being a very small channel at the start of last year and now has over 175 ,000 subscribers.

45:32He's told me himself he's making six figures and getting to travel the world in the space of like a year, which is amazing. He's had this format, which is like, you know, atheist goes to Christian church, you know, Christian goes to mosque for the first time. He has this like really interesting, like exploring different religions and having that contrast as a format. Another format he has had a lot of success with is every. So I went to every Christian denomination church. I went to every insert thing. I've seen that appearing a lot on YouTube over the last few months, like doing everything. I bought every robot vacuum.

46:05Here's the best. I read every self-help book. Here's the seven most important lessons. I think every is a really interesting format that I'm seeing out there. And it's funny because like, when people think about that, they go like, people take things too literally, too literally. Like they're like, I can't read every self-help book. I can't read every business book. It's like, you read a lot. Right, right. You know, to the point where it's basically every, right?

46:23Samir Chaudry:I just thought of a funny title. I watched every YouTube video here at the four best. It's just kind of funny. Like, because it's ridiculous. Totally unbelievable. It's totally unbelievable. But it is still interesting.

46:33Colin Rosenblum:You're like, okay, you watched a lot of videos. One of the four best.

46:35Samir Chaudry:Exactly, yeah. Any other formats that you're saying work? It's a classic format that has been around a while, but like testing unique products. I watched a video recently. I can't remember the exact title, but it was like I bought every accessory for a Tesla or something like that. And it's just like testing all these different formats. There are these different accessories. The other thing I've seen is like, the level thing with the different colors where it's like every level of blank. Yeah, that's a good one. That's been one that has been. And it's every again. It's every again. You're right.

47:05Samir Chaudry:Wow. Interesting. Why do you think that is? What's the psychology behind why?

47:08Colin Rosenblum:It's just like a level of effort that I'm not going to make as a viewer. It's a big curiosity gap.

47:12Samir Chaudry:Yeah.

47:12Colin Rosenblum:I'm not going to go out and read every self-help book or buy every camera or do all this, but someone did a pretty good job at least. I'll check it out. And I also think it's, even tying back into our first start of this episode where we talk about TV and length, It's like, every just feels whole. It feels like very, you know, expansive. It's going to cover a lot of things. It's a big thing, you know. Comprehensive, yeah. Yeah, comprehensive. So when you look at like, even the videos I'm seeing work really well in like education issues, a lot of it is that thing of like, you know, my entire playbook or I've made, you know, we made this video with the creator Ramit Sethi last year.

47:48And it was like, I've made millions of people rich. Here's my entire playbook was the title and the thumbnail. And it's like, just feels like you're getting this big, expansive, whole thing.

47:58Samir Chaudry:That was kind of brought on by like the Hermosi Simon Squibb, like all of my business knowledge in 47 minutes, right? 15 years of, and we did something similar. We did, yeah, but that's really interesting. And that video, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that video probably started, okay, kind of slow. And then over time, just - It is a steady grower. It spans like, for you guys, like over a decade, right? It's like so much of your knowledge curated. There was another really interesting video. Someone who he went to the location of the Windows desktop screensaver. That's very funny.

48:29Colin Rosenblum:Oh, I saw that. That's very good. There's a few reasons why I like this video. Because first of all, the thumbnail is not anything like spectacular. I don't know exactly how to like name this format. But there's something very interesting about this. Because what does it tap into? It's like, it is a little bit of a spectacle. It's like a real thing. Like this guy's going to go travel to this place. That's really interesting. It's also kind of nostalgic. You know, we, and it's also, a question that we've always posed to ourselves. Like, what is that? That was such an interesting video because the first two or three minutes, he's just like figuring out where it is.

48:59Samir Chaudry:Yeah, I think also the suggestion, what you just said about the suggestion of something comprehensive and complete is a really important one. Where it's like, in that video, I know the video ends once he travels to that place. That's also why building videos are really helpful. You know, I've built this thing. It's like, cool, the video ends when that thing is built. Yeah, speaking of, look at that. I mean, that's a crazy thumbnail. Is that a real, how real is that? Because sometimes I look at this stuff, it's very satisfying, but I'm like, how exaggerated is that versus how real is it? And maybe that's what draws the click for a lot of people.

49:30Samir Chaudry:Yeah, that's fair. 17 million views. A few things, yeah. You just need to know what it is.

49:34Colin Rosenblum:Similar to I bought every, or I read every self-help book. You're like, no, you didn't. Yeah. But I'll see how far you got. 51 minutes. This was made in 2020. You saw 51 minutes, you'd be like, what? Now it doesn't feel that scary. It's like, oh, I'm watching on TV. It's actually a fantastic video. So building a tiny office pod under my stairs. Yep. Tell me as a creator why I shouldn't use a more realistic version of what I actually built. Unless that is the real version. His build was actually pretty impressive. Like it's definitely like...

50:02Samir Chaudry:Okay. I got to be honest. I'm watching the video almost exact. Yeah. Really? Yes. It's enhanced. It's almost... Okay. Hold on. Because let's talk about this video because this is impressive. This is a very unbelievable thumbnail. Yeah. Can you just talk about what you like about the thumbnail and the title? like why this is so highly clickable. Because another thing about this channel man-made is it's one year old. I'm pretty sure this creator actually like applied to our cohort. I might be in one of our cohorts coming up, which is hilarious because I'm like, you just did it. But the thing to me about this is like, I mean, first of all, just the shapes, like the triangular shape and then the stairs.

50:41I think that already is just like visually satisfying. Whenever there's something we really need to focus on, I love when we have some open space. it's so interesting I sometimes think about how could a thumbnail be done wrong I think if this like end of the sort of like room was at the very end of the thumbnail I think you don't look at it and see it as like this thing that's being placed in someone's stairs it just looks more like oh it's just a cool room I think if that wasn't there I think this video would have 3 minute views instead of 17 minute views and it's like such a tiny design choice having that little space the person walking up the stairs I bet you anything in his first draft of the thumbnail that person wasn't there and then he was like eh maybe I'll put someone walking up the stairs and then it really creates that feeling of like that person doesn't look like they know he's there.

51:18And I think that helps a lot as well. And then just the colors. I mean, the little details, like, I don't know. I don't even know what this yellow thing is, but just that little yellow and then the warmness. And one thing I would say with this format, I think is really interesting as well. It's like, you know, kids' content on YouTube are content that's made for like, you know, a younger audience. Like, that's kind of, honestly, a bulk of YouTube these days. Like, there's so much content out there for kids. A lot of creators just realize that the biggest demographic of people who watch the most, they have the most available time.

51:46our kids the most available time. So they end up tailoring for that. But the interesting thing about this is it's been a huge trend in the kind of more kind of like kids, like early teen space to make these like secret rooms. I built a secret room. This is doing it, but I think this is done in a way that we could watch. It's more for us. So it's like taking that format. And I think that's the thing like, you know, I've always kind of critiqued this mindset of like creators who think they're too good for like, you know, this kid's content stuff. And they're like, oh, you know, that's terrible. I would never make that.

52:16there's still things to be learned from it. You know, there's still, you can still look and say, well, what would this look like if we age it up? Like, I always think, you know, I remember someone really like critiquing Mr. Beast on Twitter one time. Like, you know, people seem to love to do. And they were just like, look at this. Like who would watch this? I'm like, that's like me as a nearly 30 year old man. Like, you know, am I going to turn on Nickelodeon and be like, look at this. Look at this. Who would watch this, you know? Whereas I like to go and like, look at this. What happens if we try to make this for guys in their twenties and thirties?

52:44Right. Yeah, we learn from it. Because I'm like, yeah, I want to watch that. That looks cool.

52:48Samir Chaudry:This is the first frame. Well done, yeah. But look at that open space that he created, right? Touche. I'm building a tiny office under my stairs because I desperately need it if I'm going to get any work done in my crazy house. I'll be revealing the final project to ex-Pittsburgh Steeler and famous YouTube woodworker John Malecki, and I've got a feeling that somehow I'm going to mess this up. I messed up big time. What an incredible intro that was. That was everything that I did not expect.

53:14Colin Rosenblum:Well, I think that's what's great about it is it confirms the click. Yes, this is exactly the video that the thumbnail said it was going to be. But what you didn't know and didn't expect to get was that I'm going to be revealing this to a woodworker who's really an expert and a celebrity.

53:29Samir Chaudry:Yeah. And then he gives you the personality. He makes it personal immediately with that personality of, I'm definitely going to mess this up. Cut to real time. I messed it up. That's 16 seconds. Yeah. I mean, that is, that's like perfect YouTube. And the thing, right? So it's a 51 minute video. but the intro was 16 seconds. I said this earlier in the episode where people are always just so like extreme. Like it's black, it's white. It's, you know, very like rip the bandaid off. It's, you know, but people will start saying, well, now you can go slower on YouTube. You can go longer. And it's like, well, you can still take some of the lessons that made the, you know, retention editing era of like four or five years ago still special, you know?

54:03It's like -

54:03Colin Rosenblum:You can still capitalize on the first 15 seconds. Yeah.

54:06Samir Chaudry:As you should, and then let it breathe. This reminds me a lot of that birdwatching doc Listers that like once I understood the personality of it, I was so down to watch it for a long time. And I think here, now that I know this guy's personality, I'm so down to watch 50 minutes of his personality.

54:24Colin Rosenblum:Yeah, giving someone a glimpse of your personality in the first 15 seconds is so important.

54:28Samir Chaudry:So important.

54:29Colin Rosenblum:The first time I realized that in that Lister's doc, they made a really dry joke. Yes. And it was so deadpan. And I went to myself, I was like, huh, I was like, I'm in. Because I'm waiting for the next one of that.

54:39Samir Chaudry:This here would be my older brother, Quentin. And last year, he was diagnosed with the, rare and aggressive form of early onset birdwatcher. Yeah, it's amazing. Wow. This is a fantastic video. Insane.

54:52Colin Rosenblum:What are you seeing in the world of AI? What's happening with AI on YouTube? I saw a recent data that YouTube shared that 92 % of creators are using AI in their workflow. I guess it's not that surprising, but...

55:03Samir Chaudry:It is crazy that it's almost everyone. Yeah. I would assume that if you extrapolate that to like human beings and their workflow, it'd be around the same. Don't you think like working humans, that over 90%.

55:15Colin Rosenblum:I mean, maybe we're, I think we're potentially in a bit of a bubble with what we do. But yeah, I would assume at least, you know, you say you use AI and workflow and I think people think about like generative video potentially. But there's just so many different entry points, whether it's just like research, workshopping a title. There's so many different ways to engage with it. Our clients are, you know, we're using it in different ways whether it's researching, like helping produce videos. Like the generative like video is not something that I have felt like I've got to the level at yet. that I would incorporate it in video, apart from using it for like motion graphics or B-roll or stuff like that.

55:49Thumbnails though, like AI enhanced thumbnails. You're not, you know, doing anything crazy. You're just sort of taking what was in the video and using AI to create something special. Like I've got a thumbnail here. A client we signed a couple of years ago, and this was a big breakout video with him, 19 million views, private tour of an Indian billionaire secret wildlife rescue center. That thumbnail, you know, it's based on what happened in the video. There's two tigers in the video. There's, you know, the monkey, the hummingbirds. Everything is in the video, but it is heavily enhanced with AI.

56:19And that was one of the most viral videos last December. Got nearly 20 million views on a video. And that is an AI-enhanced demo.

56:26Samir Chaudry:To me, that's one end of the spectrum. And that is just a reality, to me, that's like a new tool. It's like when Photoshop came around and magazines were around, people would be like, that's so Photoshopped. It's the equivalent here. Like that's very AI, but we accept it. It's a design tool. It has implications on workflow but like largely I think on YouTube that's accepted. There's a few other elements of AI that are happening which comes to the beauty of what social has been historically has been like that's a real person telling me something. So I saw, I think it was one of the head of product at Instagram.

57:04I don't know if you saw this.

57:05Samir Chaudry:Adam Masseri's post, yeah. It was about like how in the future it's just going to be easier to identify something as human. as opposed to AI. And maybe that was the first time I was like, whoa, that's crazy. That's not one of the heads of products. That's the head of Instagram. Yeah. So he's being definitive there saying, what made creators great was authenticity, but authenticity can now be manufactured. Scary.

57:29Colin Rosenblum:The answer, which I still don't have yet, and I want to have, and maybe you can help with this is, well, then what does it mean to signify something as human if it's easier to do that? how do you do that? What are the ways to do that? Because it's not lo-fi, DIY. It's not. Because that's going to be replicated too. It already has been. What is it? To me, it's like, there's some things that are moats that are very hard to like, that are harder for AI to cross, right? And I think, you know, the obvious answer would be like, you know, what makes you human? Like what the uniqueness about you, but ultimately AI can create that narrative for themselves, you know, really easily.

58:10Sometimes it's like access, for example, like this video that's still on the table right in front of us here. And this is the first time anyone's ever taken a YouTube camera into the world's biggest like wildlife sanctuary in India. It's called Vantara. AI doesn't have that because it doesn't know what's there, right? So there's something to the fact that this is a video where someone's actually going and doing something. I think about that, like even with one of our, you know, brand clients, the Philadelphia Eagles, you know, I know this might sound like a tangent, but ultimately that is Jordan Mayada, the incredible football player.

58:42I mean, I guess AI can create a model of him, but it's not him. We have access to him and we can make that in a video. It almost feels like we're competing in unfair advantages. What are unfair advantages we still have as humans over AI? We can go do something. We can walk to something and shoot something. We can have access to something that AI still can't have. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little worrying.

59:02Samir Chaudry:The only moat right now is brand. And again, we keep coming back to that. It's like brand and permission. And then it is just like, having honest discussions about what you're trying to say. Because again, like I said, on YouTube and on social, everything you think you should make is going to get made, right? Like everything that you and I could be like, that would be a strategically a good video. It will probably get made already. So then if that's already made, what's the other thing to make? What do I actually want to make? Let's think about the channels that we think have been affected by AI and not necessarily generative video, but like actually just AI as a, you know, whether it's chat, you know, Claude, whatever.

59:42I think like the sort of channels that maybe you're feeling that a little bit are the kind of like how-to's. For sure. Five productivity tips. It's not really a video you see these days. You know, I see a video, it's just like, how I, you know, transform my entire life to be the most productive person in human history or something. You know, it's like, well, why does that have 500 ,000 views in the video with five productivity tips is five. It's because that's a, you know, a unique person talking about their perspective, their experience. Even someone like Ali Abdaal, right? I bet you if you look at Ali Abdaal, videos now and compare it to 2020, 2021, I think like there's been probably some shifts towards just like leaning into like, what can only I say?

1:00:16Colin Rosenblum:His experience, his perspective. Yeah. I always think that like, what can I say that others can't? Like, what can I like cover that others can't?

1:00:23Samir Chaudry:There's a study done around the premise of AI slop, you know, and essentially suggesting that about 20 % of videos fed to a new YouTube user are what you'd consider slop. One of the most prominent channels is a channel from India called Bandar Upna Dost. I don't know if you've seen some of the views on this. I've seen this. You've seen this. I mean, these are unbelievable views. All this to say space is getting limited, I think, or is it ever expanding? Like is, is YouTube this ever expanding environment where there's actually just more and more room than we think? Because a lot of the videos you've shown me, I've never seen, but they have like 20 million views or 8 million views.

1:01:04Samir Chaudry:Like, I've never even seen the thumbnail. So is it that like YouTube actually just continuously has more and more space for new creators? Or is it that like we have to get more competitive? So the pie is growing. The data backs us up. There's more viewership on YouTube now than there was in 2019. I think the AI's threat to me is just the volume and the speed at which it can create. And I think any algorithm that is like not very sophisticated struggles goes with that. So I think the, you know, YouTube algorithm is very sophisticated. But if I was to say, which is more sophisticated, the long form algorithm, the short form algorithm, I think the long form algorithm is much more sophisticated.

1:01:38It's been around for longer. You know, there's more inputs, there's more like, you know, tweaking because it's been around, you know, the recommendation system came into play in, I think, 2011 or something or 2010. So where shorts came out in 2022 or 23, I think shorts has a harder time like filtering and ranking. I think it's good. It's still like a good algorithm. But I think that's why I don't know, I'll see more random shorts I didn't like that I'm like, how did that get here? Then like on YouTube long form because it still feels like stronger and more curated. So the thing I worry about is like if there can be such a big volume of content made, does that, you know, affect those algorithms that aren't as sophisticated?

1:02:12With the long form audience, I think if, you know, if you told me, I don't know how many videos get uploaded a year, I should know that, but let's just say it's like...

1:02:19Samir Chaudry:Well, it's 20 million a day. 20 million a day. I don't know how... Multiply that by, you know, it's 2 billion basically. Multiply that by 365. Yeah, it's a lot of, It's a lot. So there's 20 million a day, right? I think if you told me that that's going to increase to 60 million with AI, I don't really think that affects these sort of videos. I don't really think that affects my clients. I don't think that really affects the top YouTube content out there. Because to me, again, YouTube's algorithm, it's a ranking algorithm. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter how much you feed into a ranking algorithm.

1:02:49It is feeding out the outputs of, you know, the 20, 30, 40, 50 videos that are going to be consumed by viewers, you know, that are ripe for viewers. You know, in theory, it could be 100 million videos uploaded a day. And if, you know, 80 million of them are AI slop, that's the question though. Like if they get good enough where we're like, wow, it's not the novelty. These are actually really good long form videos. Then I get concerned, but I don't think it's going to affect things immediately. But it's, you know, it feels like we're on an iceberg that's shifting around a little bit.

1:03:20Samir Chaudry:To me, it's similar to the TV conversation that it's not just algorithmic curation that's going to need to happen. there's going to need to be some level of editorial curation that happens on YouTube, I think. If we get to 80 million videos a day, which actually might come quicker than we think, right? Like if we're at 20 million right now with what we just saw with AI video, we might get to 100 million videos a day very quickly. That then brings up the question of curation. How does that word feel to you as a YouTuber? I love it. You love it? I think curation is a great thing that happens. I think curators and tastemakers have always been high value for us in culture.

1:03:58Can I make the kind of counter argument that one of the things that made YouTube so special is the no curation, the no gatekeepers, the wild west of like what is getting clicked on and what is get, like, I always think that's so interesting where like, I used to say like the YouTube argument doesn't care who your dad is, you know, and that's not to talk down on anyone that's, you know, made a career in other areas. But like, I think naturally there's a lot of, there's a lot of like layers to it it's like this person likes it puts it on like there was um i think his name was david peel i'm maybe getting his name wrong but there was a radio host in the uk in like the 70s and 80s and like if you think about all the biggest bands from like that period of uk music and you know the smiths joy division all these different bands he just found their like their their demo tape and was like wow i'm putting this on and like he birthed so many you know musicians which i think is amazing, but you'd probably miss lots.

1:04:50You know, he probably was like, oh, I missed that one. That would have been great. And I think that the great thing about algorithms is they are better at not missing things. But when you put so much volume in where it's a hundred million, yeah, it might get quite difficult even for an algorithm to...

1:05:03Samir Chaudry:Yeah, and I, my career is a result of the lack of curation, which I love. But I think it's cyclical that when you get to that much volume, there has to come back a level of curation. What do you think?

1:05:18Colin Rosenblum:I'm torn. I agree with you that it's a beautiful thing that it doesn't matter who you are. If you make something good it has the opportunity to be seen. I don't think YouTube will lose that though even amidst curation.

1:05:29Samir Chaudry:Those aren't mutually exclusive.

1:05:30Colin Rosenblum:Yeah. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it's fine. You know, Spotify we know has editorial curation and actually I think that's different. I think that's entirely editorial. A lot of editorial, yeah. But I don't think it's mutually exclusive. Kind of, it goes back to almost like the thing we talked about with shows versus individual videos. Like, They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Both can work in the future. Yeah. But maybe historically only one has worked, which is individual videos. And we're entering that new dawn.

1:05:57Samir Chaudry:Well, Patty, thank you for coming on. I love that this is an annual thing. Good to have you back. The only prediction that I feel like came true from last year is that we all still do YouTube, which is great. It's still a thing. People still watch it. It's getting bigger and bigger. Yep. More people are creating for YouTube. Hopefully this continues to be an annual thing and we don't get all replaced in the next year. Well, that's a good point. All right. See ya.