• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 30, 2011

Prior to the start of the VidCon conference Friday, a steady stream of starstruck teenage girls approached Tom Milsom requesting a hug and a picture. The 22-year-old self-made London-based YouTube musician, performer and poet mostly appeals to girls ages 13 to 18. Brands love him, too.

Earlier in the week, Milsom landed in Los Angeles to attend the conference dedicated to YouTube videographers and performers. He began making YouTube videos about three years ago. And although he tries to avoid the pre-roll ads, because they are "intensely frustrating," the YouTube star recently signed a deal with a U.K.-based company to sponsor his show. He hopes to find more at VidCon, a conference produced by Hank and John Green.

Google's video site YouTube gets 48 hours of content uploaded each minute. YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar told the more than 2,300 attendees, mostly ages 12 to 25, there are 3 billion daily video views. "You don't flip the channels and complain there's nothing to watch; you create new ones," he said. "Some of which, I think, will become as well-known in the future as networks like CNN, MTV and ESPN."

A team of YouTubers introduced Creator Hub, a place where partners and creators can find the latest news and access the Playbook to learn new skills. The group also explained recently launched tools such as YouTube Creator Institute, YouTube NextUp and Cosmic Panda.

Brand marketers that can find the perfect content provider match have a unique opportunity. Some with video channels make more than $100,000 annually. Those garnering $1,000 monthly have tripled in the last year, according to Tom Pickett, director of global content operations.

In the past year the site has grown from 10,000 to 20,000 partners.

Google sites -- driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com -- ranked the top online video content property in June 2011 with 149.3 million unique viewers, according to comScore.

Total viewing sessions surpassed 6 billion for the first time, with Google sites generating the highest number of viewing sessions -- 2.3 billion -- and highest time spent per viewer at 324 minutes, or 5.4 hours. VEVO with 63.0 million viewers and Yahoo sites with 52.7 million viewers followed. Microsoft sites came in fourth with 50.7 million viewers, the data firm estimates.