• It had 22 billion views last year, and views more than doubled on the previous year
• It’s the third fastest growing category on YouTube
• 77% of all views of educational content come from outside the U.S.

• SciShow - SciShow is all about teaching scientific concepts in an accessible and easy-to-understand manner. It will have four weekly episodes through 2012, delivered in short, three-minute segments, as well as longer ten-minute episodes, with up-to-the minute news and interviews on subjects ranging from particle physics to DNA. The first episode is about “non-newtonian fluids,” and the second episode focuses on the Higgs Boson particle and includes interviews with the director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

About the teacher: Hank Green is a well-known Web entrepreneur and personality. With more than a half-million subscribers, Green is the younger half of the Vlogbrothers (www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers), chief trivia officer of TruthorFail (www.youtube.com/truthorfail), founder and CEO of VidCon (www.vidcon.com), inventor of 2D glasses (www.2d-glasses.com), publisher of Ecogeek.org (www.ecogeek.org), vice president of the Foundation to Decrease World Suck (www.fightworldsuck.org), owner of the DFTBA Record label (www.dftba.com) and a Billboard top ten musician.

About the teacher: John Green is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist Looking for Alaska and the Edgar Award winning Paper Towns. His books have been published in more than 20 languages and have more than a million copies in print. With his brother Hank, John is also one half of the vlogbrothers YouTube channel. Vlogbrothers videos have been watched more than 180 million times and spawned nerdfighteria, a community dedicated to celebrating intellectual engagement and fighting poverty, disease, and other forms of worldsuck.

About the teacher: Brady Haran is a former BBC journalist and current independent filmmaker who is simply crazy about math and science. His first foray into the world of YouTube education was to make a video about every element in the periodic table, an endeavor that garnered him 19 million YouTube views and 63,000 subscribers from around the world. His most-viewed video (about what happens to a cheeseburger in hydrochloric acid) received more than half a million views.

About the teacher: Brady Haran - as above.

• Intelligent Channel - It’s essentially a channel of luminaries from education, art, and culture discussing topical things.The hosts of the shows are actor/comedian Richard Belzer (the actor from Homicide and Law & Order, and Paul Holdengraber of ‘Live from the New York Public Library’ fame.In “Richard Belzer’s Conversation” he’ll interviews interviews actors, comedians, directors, musicians, and writers in revealing and insightful conversations. “The Paul Holdengräber Show will engage award-winning writers and artists about their work and passions. The first programs feature conversations about writing and performing in the face of terror and tragedy. Belzer’s opening guest is comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who discusses the implications of comedy after 9/11  and cataclysmic events more generally. His next guests include Dick Cavett, Ice-T, and Emmy-award winning writer-producer Tom Fontana. On “The Paul Holdengräber Show,” his first guest is Colum McCann, author of  National Book Award-winning novel Let the Great World Spin. Holdengräber’s next guest is Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the Eat Pray Love.