Just over a month ago, Google quietly launched the “Poptub” channel on YouTube in conjunction with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” creator Michael Davies. “Poptub” is a short-form video show that features the latest popular videos on the user-generated content site.

The episodes feature perky hostess Maria Sansone, talking about the latest videos to become popular across YouTube. She also does interviews with the creators of some of the videos and with celebrities such as “Juno” star Michael Cera.

This is Google’s second foray in recent months, producing video content, after the launch of “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.” This show features short form video content from “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane.

Unlike the Cavalcade, which was intended to be a sort of online mini-series, “Poptub” is going to be an ongoing project. It has the feel of a nightly entertainment news program, combined with user-generated content from YouTube celebrities and has garnered more than 69 thousand views in its first month.

“Poptub” was launched with strong backing from Pepsi, in order to create a mass-market online video show. Advertisers, such as Pepsi, want guaranteed distribution and Google has reportedly promised to deliver at least 3 billion impressions in 2008 alone.

Google plans to deliver on this promise by distributing the content across multiple social networks. “Poptub” has a page on both Myspace and Facebook, and has a Google Gadget that can be embedded on any Web page. The show also has a presence on micro-blogging sites Twitter and Tumblr.

YouTube has long been criticized for not having any kind of guide to its content, though any mention of “Poptub” is curiously vacant from the YouTube home page. Now some critics are concerned about Google producing original content as it’s the leading search engine used to find new online content.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 8:51 am under Advertising, Online video, YouTube.

Read more entries by Dave Jeyes.
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