Darren Herman

My almost 3-year old son, David, loves watching Thomas & Friends.  We have countless DVDs, iPad apps, and other Thomas inspired entertainment.  When Thomas is on television, my wife either DVR’s it or David ends up watching it live.

However, when online, David watches Thomas & Friends, but it’s not the Thomas and Friends you’d expect.  There is a sizeable amount of professional content uploaded on YouTube but David prefers the custom home videos produced by kids about Thomas.  YouTube says there are about 123,000 results for “Thomas the Tank Engine.”

It’s amazing how long David will sit and watch UGC content of Thomas the train, which were created by kids and their parents.

A video called “Accidents Happen” has been viewed 13.4MM times… yes, 13.4 million.  All created by a kid and his dad for Thomas.  I’m sure David has been 50 of those views in the last 2 weeks alone.

There is also a ton of this content on YouTube, not just for Thomas & Friends but for plenty of other shows.

I almost think David prefers this kid-produced UGC over the professionally done content.

There’s something here… a hypothesis, an entrepreneurial endeavor, a marketing opportunity… just can’t put my finger on it.

You can learn a lot from your kids, be sure to keep your mind open.