I was expecting something like lonelygirl15 or the original menthos coke video to be number 1. But no, the most popular video of all time on YouTube, so far, has been Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply. It was added to YouTube on April 06, 2006 and has since gone on to attract 55.8 Million views. It's had 60,476 comments, the first of which was: "That was freaking AWESOME! Thanks for sharing!!". The comments for this video are still going strong today - the latest 10 comments have all come in the last 30 minutes, as of writing. Plus it's been favorited 252,082 times (making it the number 1 Top Favorited video of All Time).

UPDATE: Top 10 YouTube Videos of All Time, 2008 Edition

According to a SMH article at the end of 2006, Laipply is a comedian and motivational speaker from Cleveland, Ohio. The video shows him dancing a six-minute routine encompassing 32 songs spanning more than 50 years of music and dance. In many ways this is your typical YouTube video - a funny, goofy, short and clever video, in this case uploaded by and starring a professional comedian. But there are tens of thousands of similar videos on YouTube, uploaded by enthusiastic amateurs (mostly teens).

Incidentally, on Laipply's website there is an accompanying cat video - proving once and for all that this success story was by and for the Web.

The next 3 most viewed YouTube videos are all music. Two of them professional, one amatuer.

2. Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend video, uploaded by RCARecords 5 months ago, has amassed 50 Million views.

3. My Chemical Romance's Famous Last Words is third, with 35M views.

4. Guitar, is fourth with 26M views. It's 5 minutes of Queen-like guitar licks, by some very talented dude.

Rounding out the Top 10:

5. SNL - Digital Short - A Special Christmas Box (comedy)

6. Tuğba Özay ve 250.000ci GarantiArkadas. com Üyesi (I have no idea what this is)

7. My Chemical Romance - Teenagers (music)

8. xxx (the title and promo image give the impression it is porn, but in fact it's a sappy Hong Kong pop video)

9. Beyonce ft. Shakira - Beautiful Liar (mv) (music)

10. Akon - "Don't Matter" (music)

Conclusion: Music Reigns Supreme

So in all, 7 of the top 10 are music - with 5 of those being professional videos. And OK Go is number 11 with their famously clever treadmill dancing video for Here It Goes Again. Indeed if you look at the Most Viewed Channels of all time, a lot of them are music companies. Universal Music is number 1 and My Chemical Romance number 3 (CBS is number 2).

If you're wondering where are all the 'America's Funniest Home Videos'-like ones, there is a laughing baby video at number 12.

So music and comedy make up the most popular videos on YouTube. And we can also see from this list that professional musicians and entertainers remain more popular than the so-called 'user generated' videos - at least at the toppermost of the poppermost.

UPDATE: Top 10 YouTube Videos of All Time, 2008 Edition