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Most of my stuff hasn't gone viral. I have been successful on YouTube and I'm very proud of the stuff that I've done, but compared to the people who are actual internet stars and making a living off of it, my views are nothing.

As far as what makes a viral video, then it's gotta be something that you've either never seen before, a fresh piece of comedy, or something that relates to something topical.

It's very easy to make a viral video, but longevity and consistency, that's hard.

The number one question I'm asked as a YouTuber every day is, 'How can I get my videos out there; how can I make my videos go viral?'

For most of the millions of people who watch TED videos at the office, it's a middlebrow diversion and a source of factoids to use on your friends. Except TED thinks it's changing the world, like if 'This American Life' suddenly mistook itself for Doctors Without Borders.

Every video I make, I want to make sure that it's doing something entertaining or hopefully inspiring or maybe teaching somebody something or sharing my mistakes so that they can learn from them or anything that will make a positive impact in the world.

There are quite a lot of YouTube clips of me that have gone viral. One that I think of is of a young woman at a lecture I was giving - she came from Liberty University, which is a ludicrous religious institution. She said, 'What if you are wrong?' and I answered that rather briefly, and that's gone viral.

Being web video 'experts'/'pioneers,' whatever you may want to call us, has us always thinking about content that is outside the box, inherently viral in itself and good for web video audiences, as you can't just put out a good piece of content and expect it to be seen.

Video is so primal. When you can hear a person talking about the project, and can see his or her passion, it is unbelievably powerful. I don't want to make it seem like projects without a video fail.

Ben Smith's quick-hit campaign 'scoops' are about as viral as cat videos. That fits with Buzzfeed.