PewDiePie, YouTubers And The Future Of Celebrity – The Week's CTRL ALT Delete Segment On CHOM 97.7 FM
Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 5 to 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on iHeart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.
PewDiePie. Know him? He’s a YouTuber. He’s very funny. I’ve been watching his videos for a long while. He started making videos in 2010. They’re mostly him playing video games (and getting very frustrated). Now, he’s a celebrity. He has over 50 million subscribers. It’s not unusual for his videos to get 10-20 million views each. This makes him the #1 most subscribed channel on YouTube worldwide (by a lot). Forbes reported that he made about $15 million this year alone. He threatened that he would delete his YouTube channel when it hit 50 million subscribers. He didn’t. He trolled the media. It worked. It was funny. There’s a lesson here about the power of YouTube celebrities, and how the vast majority of the population, can’t seem to understand this incredible new breed of celebrity and reality star.
Would you go to the movie theater, if you could rent the film from iTunes within a few weeks of its release? We’re about to find out. Apparently, Apple has been pushing the major movie studios to offer up home-video rentals of new movies shortly after they open in theatres. Will this be good or bad for the movie business? Smells like more disruption.
App of the week: TapeACall (warning: this app is $13.99… and well worth it).