The first incarnation of the brothers' online broadcasting was the "Brotherhood 2.0" project, preceding the establishment of the pair's regular vlogging activity through the Vlogbrothers channel.

The project was launched on January 1, 2007, based on the premise that the brothers would cease all text-based communication for one year and, instead, converse by video blogs every weekday.

The project was made available to the public on YouTube, with John's first video on his original channel "sparksflyup," as well as through the brothers' own Brotherhood 2.0 website.

[9][10] On July 18, 2007, Hank Green uploaded a video of himself performing his song "Accio Deathly Hallows" in honor of the seventh Harry Potter book.

[14] However, the brothers decided to continue uploading videos on YouTube due to their popularity and growing fan base.

[15] The website was originally maintained solely by Hank Green, but was later updated and moderated by a group of community volunteers known as the "Ningmasters".

[17] On January 20, 2010, John Green went on paternity leave, and Maureen Johnson made videos in his place until his return the following month, when he introduced his son, Henry.

[18] During 2011 and 2012, the Green brothers had their Vlogbrothers videos consistently featured on media outlets such as CBS News and Huffington Post.

[27] Later, on June 25, John Green went on paternity leave for the birth of his second child, Alice, and six guest hosts made videos in his place, including Hannah Hart (MyHarto), Grace Helbig (itsgrace), Craig Benzine (wheezywaiter), Rosianna Rojas (missxrojas), and the winners of the "Nerd Factor" competition: YouTube users MagicTurtle643 and Sabrina Cruz (NerdyAndQuirky).

[34] The Greens were able to find a dedicated audience, with Christian Today detailing "their message, celebrating nerdiness, education, science, and imagining others complexly, has resonated loudly across the globe.

"[13] Margaret Talbot of The New Yorker has praised the topics of the video blogs, describing, "The tone of their monologues ranged from goofily informative... to wonkish."

"[26] However, Craig Rubens of GigaOM, gave a more critical review of the video blog, comparing it negatively to the show with zefrank.