Type of site | Video on demand |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Founded | May 23, 2019 |
Headquarters | United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Owners | Standard Broadcast LLC; Curiosity Stream has minority stake |
Founder(s) | Dave Wiskus |
CEO | Dave Wiskus |
Total equity | $50+ million |
URL | nebula |
Registration | Subscription required to access entire library. |
Users | 680,000 (December 2023) [1] |
Current status | Active |
Nebula is a video-on-demand streaming service provider. Launched by the Standard Broadcast content management agency in 2019 to complement its creators' other distribution channels (primarily YouTube), [2] [3] the platform has since accumulated over 650,000 subscribers, [4] making it the largest creator-owned internet streaming platform. [5]
Dave Wiskus and various creators established Standard Broadcast LLC as a creator-owned alternative to multi-channel networks, assisting its members in the content management and marketing aspects of the creator economy. [2] Originating from Standard creator community discussions on means of diminishing reliance to dominant platforms such as YouTube, Nebula launched on 23 May 2019 with 75 creators. [3] The platform has since, as of late 2023, accumulated over 650,000 subscribers and 175 creators who collectively have over 120 million YouTube subscribers. [4] [5]
In September 2021, Curiosity Stream acquired a minority stake in Nebula, valuing the company at over $50 million. Nebula subsequently collaborated with Curiosity Stream to promote a bundle subscription for both streaming services. [5] In 2022, Nebula expanded its Nebula Originals catalog, launching Nebula Classes in May for paid online courses and Nebula First in October for early access to videos that are later released on other platforms. [6] [7] In November 2023, the platform announced that it would no longer be bundled with Curiosity Stream subscriptions in 2024, with subscribers to the latter needing to subscribe separately to Nebula upon renewal to retain access. [8]
Creators releasing content on Nebula include Jordan Harrod, Hbomberguy, Lindsay Ellis, LegalEagle, MinutePhysics, Extra Credits, Adam Neely, Johnny Harris, Rene Ritchie, Not Just Bikes, Abigail Thorn, Tale Foundry, Neo (Leon Herres), RealLifeLore, Real Engineering, and Sam Denby. [9]
Some video essayists have published content on Nebula that may be censored or removed on YouTube, such as Maggie Mae Fish's Unrated and Broey Deschanel's Taboo on Screen, both of which cover sexuality in film. [10]
Nebula funded an Off West End play, The Prince (2022), by Abigail Thorn. It broke even through ticket sales before opening night. After performances at the Southwark Playhouse in September and October 2022, a recording of the play was released in February 2023, with a remastered version following later in the year. [11] [12] [13] [14] The play received awards from The Offies and BroadwayWorld . [15] [16] In November 2023, Wiskus said Nebula is working towards becoming a Netflix competitor instead of a YouTube competitor, with Thorn's short film Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend set to be released exclusively on Nebula. [17]
Standard distributes half of the platform's subscription profits to creators based on watch time. [18] A portion of the company's revenue is spent on its other subsidiary, Standard Studios, an in-house production company that assists creators with production, editing, and graphics for both Nebula Originals and cross-platform videos. [19] Creators can sell merchandise through the website. [20]
Nebula received nominations for the "Best Influencer Campaign" in the 10th and 12th Annual Streamy Awards as well as "Best Creator Product" in the 11th Annual Streamy Awards. [21] [22] [23] In 2023, Sight and Sound 's video essay poll received nine Nebula nominations across seven unique videos. Three of the videos were published simultaneously to YouTube, three were published later, and one had a shorter version published on YouTube. [10]
In a 2022 review for PCMag , Jordan Minor said its basic tier was better value than YouTube Premium but its classes worse value than MasterClass. Minor praised the interface, including accessibility features and VPN compatibility, though he critiqued the lack of age ratings or controls. Minor praised the creator-owned nature of Nebula, but said its limited exclusive content was a limitation. [20]
In March 2024, FastCompany named Nebula one of the most innovative companies in video. [24]
Lindsay Ellis is an American science fiction author, video essayist, film critic, and YouTuber. Her debut novel, Axiom's End, published in July 2020, became a New York Times Best Seller.
John Patrick Douglass, better known as jacksfilms, is an American YouTuber, videographer, and sketch comedian, best known for his series Yesterday I Asked You and Your Grammar Sucks, in which he commentates on content sent by fans.
MinutePhysics is an educational YouTube channel created by Henry Reich in 2011. The channel's videos use whiteboard animation to explain physics-related topics. Early videos on the channel were approximately one minute long. As of March 2024, the channel has over 5.7 million subscribers.
Mark Edward Fischbach, known online as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, actor and filmmaker. He mainly uploads Let's Plays and is known for his videos of indie horror games. After joining YouTube in 2012, Fischbach became popular on the platform with Let's Plays of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and the Five Nights at Freddy's series. As of August 2024, his channel had over 36.8 million subscribers.
Seán William McLoughlin, better known publicly as jacksepticeye, is an Irish YouTuber whose videos focus on gaming, comedy and vlogging.
Curiosity Stream Inc., formerly branded as CuriosityStream, is an American media company and subscription video streaming service that offers documentary programming including films, series, and TV shows. The company offers a video-on-demand subscription service branded as "Curiosity Stream" and a linear broadcast television channel known as the Curiosity Channel through various services such as FuboTV and The Roku Channel.
Matthew Robert Patrick, better known as MatPat, is an American semi-retired YouTuber and internet personality. He is the creator and former host of the YouTube series Game Theorists, and its spin-off series Film Theorists, Food Theorists, and Style Theorists, each analyzing various video games, films alongside TV series and web series, food, and fashion respectively. Each of the different series are posted on individual channels, each named after the respective series. In addition to the creation of his channels, Patrick narrated the majority of the videos that are presented on his channels prior to his departure on March 9, 2024.
Sam Denby is an American YouTuber who created the edutainment YouTube channels Wendover Productions, Half as Interesting, Extremities, and the travel competition show Jet Lag: The Game. Across all of Denby's channels, he has accumulated more than 1 billion views and more than 7.8 million subscribers. He is the chief content officer of streaming service Nebula.
James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson, better known by his online alias MrBeast, is an American YouTuber, internet personality and businessman. He is known for his fast-paced and high-production videos featuring elaborate challenges and lucrative giveaways. With over 309 million subscribers, he has the most-subscribed-to YouTube channel and is the third-most-followed creator on TikTok with over 103 million followers. He also has over 60 million followers on Instagram and 30.9 million on X.
Rachell Marie Hofstetter, better known as Valkyrae, is an American live streamer and YouTuber. She is a co-owner of the gaming organization 100 Thieves and has been YouTube's most-watched female streamer since 2020.
Abigail Thorn is an English YouTuber, actress, and playwright.
Jaiden Dittfach, known online as Jaiden Animations, is an American YouTuber and animator, known for her story-time animations. Her videos explore a variety of topics, spanning from her experiences to personal stories. She now primarily creates videos centered around video game stories.
Michael Reeves is an American YouTuber and Twitch streamer who produces “comedy-tech” YouTube videos. He is a member of OfflineTV, an online social entertainment group of content creators.
Clay, known by his online alias Dream, is an American YouTuber, Twitch streamer and singer who is known primarily for creating Minecraft content.
Jarvis Allen Johnson is an American YouTuber and podcaster. He is also a former software engineer who has been operating his YouTube channel since October 12, 2006.
George Davidson, better known online as GeorgeNotFound, is an English internet personality, YouTuber, and Twitch streamer. He gained substantial popularity in 2020 and 2021 through uploading Minecraft content. Alongside content creator and frequent collaborator Dream, Davidson founded the Dream SMP, a Minecraft role-playing server consisting of multiple storylines and characters. As of July 2023, Davidson's five YouTube channels have all collectively reached over 15.2 million subscribers and over 742.1 million views.
Darren Jason Watkins Jr., known online as IShowSpeed or simply Speed, is an American internet personality and online streamer. He is best known for his dramatic behavior in his variety livestreams, in which he primarily streams around the world, and plays video games. In 2022, IShowSpeed began to shift towards soccer-related content while also becoming an avid supporter of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, commonly revolving his content with support towards him.
Alexis, better known online as Quackity, is a Mexican YouTuber and Twitch streamer. He is known as the founder of QSMP, an invite-only multilingual survival multiplayer (SMP) Minecraft server. He is also well known for his time in the Dream SMP. As of April 2024, he had 6.3 million followers on Twitch, making him the 28th most followed streamer on the platform.
Eric Decker, known online as Airrack, is an American YouTube vlogger known for his challenge and prank content, and for gaining a million subscribers in a year. He is also co-founder of Creator Now, an educational program for online content creation.
The Prince is a play by Abigail Thorn in which characters from William Shakespeare's plays realise they are trapped in a performance and try to escape. The play ran at the Southwark Playhouse from 19 September 2022 to 8 October and a filmed version was released to the streaming service Nebula on 16 February 2023.