"Early on (we’re talking ’06 here, people!), the yellow subscribe button made its debut so the latest videos from your favorite channels could make a beeline to your inbox/eager eyes," YouTube Product Marketing Manager Georges Haddad, said in a blog post yesterday. "Today, the button that’s been immortalized as a throw cushion hits an important landmark: it’s been clicked over one billion times."

While it was MachinimaSports that got the billionth subscription (featured on YouTube’s homepage today), a number of channels have over a million subscribers. In fact there are 15 of them. These include: fred, nigahiga, kassemg, shanedawsonTV, shanedawsonTV2, smosh, universalmusicgroup,machinima, sxephil, mysteryguitarman, davedays, kevjumba, realannoyingorange, raywilliamjohnson, collegehumor, failblog.

YouTube has also launched a new widget for video producers to embed on their sites and blogs that allows for one-click YouTube channel subscription. That should help the second billion come a lot faster. 

When a user clicks the button, they don’t have to leave the content provider’s site to log into YouTube or to confirm their subscription. It all happens right in the widget. Content providers can get the source code for the widget here. 

In other YouTube news, CEO Chad Hurley announced that he is stepping down from his post, and will assume an advisory role with YouTube. As Doug Caverly points out, he was the last of YouTube’s co-founders to have close ties to the company.

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StumbleUpon has just rolled out an upgrade to its StumbleUpon Video product, adding support for third-party services like Hulu and TED, as well as adding personalized recommendations from your StumbleUpon friends.

If you’ve never used StumbleUpon Video, it’s similar to other video discovery services like Redux or ShortForm. Log in to the site and you’re treated to a selection of videos based on your topics of interest. Now you can also get your friends’ recommendations, which you can give a thumbs-up or thumb-down, and cycle through from the keyboard.

What separates StumbleUpon Video from some other offerings is that it can pump content in from a lot of different services. Historically StumbleUpon Video has supported services like Vimeo, YouTube, CollegeHumor and DailyMotion. In the past few months, StumbleUpon has added TED video to the mix to great success.

Starting today, StumbleUpon users can now also access and “stumble” Hulu content. The TED and Hulu aspects add some variety to the StumbleUpon Video platform and make way for more long-form viewing options.

Perhaps even more importantly, StumbleUpon has adjusted its recommendation engine, changing it from just recommending what was popular or well-rated in various categories, to integrating recommendations from your friends.

This makes a lot of sense in the context of longer-form content. For example, I really enjoy watching short-form programming and bits of content recommended by strangers. It can be a cool way to see absolutely bizarre and awesomely awful displays of humanity (or lackthereof). However, if I’m going to watch something like a TED talk or a TV show, I’m much more likely to give the content a chance if I know who recommended it.

We asked StumbleUpon if it had any plans to integrate with other social graphs and recommendations systems and the answer, for now, is no. This is understandable, but we think that this sort of recommendation engine could get even better if it could hook into Facebook or other services to help flesh out what you like and recommend.

Video Discovery Has Big Potential

For a content discovery service like StumbleUpon, it makes sense to focus more on video. ShortForm, one of the newer places in the video discovery space, is already reporting huge returns on user engagement and sustained visits.

Earlier this month, ShortForm announced it was already getting more than 200,000 visitors a month, with returning visitors watching for 10 to 30 minutes per session.

That sort of sustained viewership is important for advertisers, especially as more and more video content moves online. The sheer breadth of content offerings make curating or recommendation services even more beneficial to consumers, who can get a greater variety of content they want in one place.

Mobile?

StumbleUpon recently released a mobile app for iPhone and Android. These apps let you rate and recommend YouTube videos on the go, but the focus is currently on traditional websites. StumbleUpon also has an iPad app.

We asked StumbleUpon about plans for making mobile video recommendations easier and it’s on the horizon — but for now, the focus is on the desktop product.

Personally speaking, I’d love to see a StumbleUpon app for the iPad or the Boxee platform, with a big focus on video.

We think video recommendation services show a lot of promise and by partnering with big content providers like Hulu, StumbleUpon is doing a lot to further its development.

More About: shortform.tv, stumbleupon, stumbleupon video, stumblevideo, web video

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"Instead of hunting from site to site for fresh, interesting videos, now you can watch content from across the web, all in one sleek, distraction-free, theater-like interface," says Monofsu, Community Manager at StumbleUpon. "It’s just you and the video you’re watching!"

"Remember to thumb-up and thumb-down your videos just like you do with web pages; the more you rate the videos you are watching, the better StumbleUpon can create a more personalized experience that becomes increasingly tailored to your preferences over time," says Monofsu.

StumbleUpon will let users stumble through videos from specific destinations, such as YouTube, Vimeo, CollegeHumor and others. They just added Hulu and TED to the line-up. 

The company is playing its new video service up as an alternative to TV:

Content providers should not overlook the service. Not only has StumbleUpon been proven to be a great provider of traffic, but its user base continues to grow (it reached 10 million in the summer), and it has since made its way to the iPhone and Android. 

As connected TV devices become more popular, services like StumbleUpon video stand to become more useful to consumers, and that means more opportunities to get your videos seen. 

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We’ve already brought you one round-up of social songs, a great selection of Facebook songs and some Twitter ditties, but now we’re back with more topical tunes.

Within this new list you’ll find spoofs, parodies, comical raps and even some earnest love songs all themed around social networking, the online world, and the companies within it.

So, clear your throat, get your air guitar sound checked, and get your drumstick pencils ready, then go singalong through the video gallery below and let us know your favorite social songs in the comments…

1. A Social Network for Two: A Modern Love Song

Who wouldn’t want to be serenaded with this short and sweet ditty from Zefrank?

2. My Mom’s on Facebook

Blood of TigerCat adds some metal, and a considerable amount of hair, to the question we’ve all had to ask ourselves — should I accept my mom’s friend request on Facebook?

3. Welcome To YouTube

Comedic singer-songwriter Bo Burnham turns his satirical sights to the YouTube platform, managing to rhyme “frolic” with “alcoholic” which we’d guess must be some kind of first.

8. The New Dork – Entrepreneur State of Mind

We’re big fans of this spoof song — and that’s not just because of the Mashable name-check.

5. I Follow You

This slightly bittersweet tune will ring true with any one who has had a special friend — on the other side of the world.

7. LOLcats Song

Made with “many many apologies to The Cure” LOLcats get their own theme tune. Or theme out-of-tune might be more accurate.

9. Web Site Story

CollegeHumor gives West Side Story (itself based on Romeo and Juliet) a Web 2.0 makeover in this social song. (Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled for this video, so you’ll have to click through to watch.)

4. The Foursquare Rap – Badges Like Us

The location-based social networking service du jour gets the rap treatment with the valuable advice — don’t check in to your house. That’s just lame. Word.

10. Everybody Tweet

We think is a parody, but we’re not entirely certain that it’s not serious. Please let it be a parody…

6. Chatroulette Song (Slightly NSFW)

The always amusing Jon Lajoie manages to capture the entire essence of Chatroulette in one catchy little song.

NSFW BONUS: Sit on My Facebook (Internet Love Song)

The Scribes and the Pantless Knights teamed up for this hilarious but definitely NSFW track which brings all kinds of sexual innuendos to the social space. Again, not something to be watching at work.

More Web Video Resources from Mashable:

– 10 Best “Worst” Infomercials on YouTube [VIDEOS]
– The 10 Most Innovative Viral Video Ads of 2009
– 5 Best YouTube Sports Moments of 2009
– Top 10 Video Sharing Sites Judged by Mashable Readers
– 5 Important Web Video Lessons for Small Business Owners
– 7 of the Most Inspiring Videos on the Web

More About: chatroulette, facebook, foursquare, Lists, lolcats, music, music videos, parodies, parody, spoof, spoofs, twitter, videos, viral videos, youtube

For more Web Video coverage:

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Sketch troupe Derrick Comedy has tackled social networking as the topic of their latest video on CollegeHumor by creating the next next-generation social network: Gink. What is Gink? Well, it’s simple, really: “Gink is a fun made-up word, combining the words gibble and spink, both of which are also made up.”

Simultaneously parodying the proliferation of social networks and the dizzying array of specialized terminology that often comes with them, Gink goes off the deep end with an assortment of seriously delivered gibberish that would make Dr. Seuss proud.

Check out the video below — warning: some NSFW language included — and let us know what you think. Is Gink the next big thing?

[via Maximum Fun]

Tags: collegehumor, comedy, facebook, gink. Derrick Comedy, parody, social networks, twitter, video, viral video, youtube

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Each month, our partner Visible Measures compiles a list of the top ten most popular web video series, and we share those results with you and provide analysis.

In January, the threshold for entry into the list was the highest it’s ever been, but viewership for the top 10 shows dropped 26% as compared to the record-breaking month of December.

If you’ve been keeping track in previous months, you won’t be surprised to see that Fred and Happy Tree Friends have again topped the list. Also notable: CollegeHumor and video game-themed shows collectively took up half the list. There weren’t any new series on the list in January, but a couple that dropped off in the past made a comeback. We also learned that the majority of viewers for the top 10 shows were male.

Here’s the complete chart with video clips included for each series. We provide some deeper analysis below.

The Chart: January 2010

	Rank	Last Month’s Rank	Title	Studio	Genre	True Reach View Count	% Change in Views	Sample Episode
	1 1 Fred n/a Comedy 24,719,556 -28% Play 2 2 Happy Tree Friends MondoMedia Animation 17,697,316 -15% Play 3 4 Smosh Deca TV Comedy, Sketch 13,151,356 13% Play 4 5 The Station The Station Comedy 4,317,575 -24% Play 5 Back On Chart POV CollegeHumor Comedy 4,146,733 Back On Chart Play 6 10 Hardly Working CollegeHumor Comedy 3,562,906 32% Play 7 9 Jake & Amir CollegeHumor Comedy, Sketch 3,275,001 6% Play 8 Back On Chart Red Vs Blue Rooster Teeth Animation, Comedy 3,224,802 Back On Chart Play 9 8 The Guild n/a Comedy, Gaming 3,209,027 -17% Play 10 7 Key Of Awesome Next New Networks Comedy, Music 3,150,905 -39% Play

*The Visible Measures Top 10 Webisodes Chart focuses on digital studio-driven Web series that appear on Internet video-sharing destinations. Each Web series is measured on a True Reach™ basis, which includes viewership of both studio-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data are compiled using the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on more than 100 million Internet videos across more than 150 video-sharing destinations.

Note: This chart does not include vloggers, interviews, how-to series, news shows, or product review shows. View-count results are incremental by month.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming Web series, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign’s overall performance, please contact us directly.

If you’re interested in exploring this data further, go to visiblemeasures.com/mashable.

Consistently On Top: Fred

The teenager with the high-pitched voice has topped the list again, and he managed to do it even though he only put out one new video in January. That new episode garnered 1.7 million views, so the rest of the 24.7 million were all thanks to old content that people are still discovering or re-watching.

You can’t fault Fred completely for dropping from his December high of 34.2 million views; he didn’t have topical holiday content to work with this time. It’s still impressive that a 16-year old actor with a webcam is beating each and every show from web TV networks like Next New Networks and CollegeHumor.

We mentioned earlier that the majority of top 10 show viewers are male; it’s interesting to note that Fred has the highest ratio of female viewers at 45%.

CollegeHumor’s Mark Is Hard to Miss

CollegeHumor is straight up mainstream now thanks to two cable TV deals in the works with MTV, and its online performance is as impressive as ever. It’s the only network with three series on the list — POV, Hardly Working, and Jake & Amir. They’ve all appeared on the list before, and together they racked up just shy of 11 million views.

All three of these CollegeHumor series saw growth since last month; POV didn’t appear on the December chart at all, but now it’s back. Hardly Working is actually working hard; it cranked out several new videos in January and grew 32% as compared to last month. Jack & Amir experienced a modest 6% growth.

The Guild and Red Vs. Blue: The Gamer Niche

Video game-themed programming has always been a significant genre in web TV. Because web series are usually cheaper to produce and viewership expectations are lower than would be the case with over-the-air shows, web series find it advantageous to serve a deep and narrow niche. Gamers are a great audience because there are just enough of them, and because they have their own dedicated ecosystem of social media and blogs to spread the word.

The Guild and Red Vs. Blue aren’t performing as well as they used to, but the gamer audience is still obviously alive and well since these gamer shows take up two of the top 10 spots. Red Vs. Blue just started airing new content, so it returned to the list after a hiatus. Conversely, The Guild is off-season so its numbers have declined.

A greater portion of Red Vs. Blue’s audience is male than any other show on the list. That should be no surprise since the series is based on the science fiction action shooter Halo.

Tags: monthly top webisodes, video, visible measures, Web TV, web video

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Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, January 2010

It’s no secret that Android and iPhone are something of mortal enemies — just take a look at any of the Droid ads currently hitting TV screens across the country.

Well, imagine a world in which the makers of Android — Google — kicked up their battle plan a notch, drawing upon the arsenal of dirt that the search engine has cached on its users to blackmail us all into ditching our iPhones in favor of Motorola’s myTouch. College Humor has imagined such a world, which they have hilariously rendered in the video after the jump.

That’ll make you think twice for sexting, huh?

Tags: andoid, college humor, droid, Google, iphone

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