NEW YORK – The co-founders of the popular video-sharing site YouTube are among the winners of the annual Webby online achievement awards announced last week.
Steve Chen and Chad Hurley were named People of the Year for creating a site credited with transforming the media landscape and reshaping politics, pop culture and more. NBC has used YouTube to promote its shows; political activists have posted clips with spoofs and speeches of candidates. The site even got the attention of search engine leader Google Inc., which paid $1.76 billion for it last year.
Lifetime achievement awards went to David Bowie, whose projects blend art and technology, and to the eBay community and its chief executive, Meg Whitman, for changing how people connect and interact worldwide.
New categories were added this year for film and video, with best actor and actress awards going to “Ninja” from the “Ask a Ninja” video series and Jessica Lee Rose, who became an instant online celebrity as fictional video diarist “lonelygirl15.”
Winners were named in scores of other business, consumer and culture categories.
Multiple winners include Yahoo Inc.’s Flickr photo service, the British Broadcasting Corp. and the social-networking site LinkedIn. Video award winners include the online companion clips to NBC’s “The Office” and the viral video “Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments.”
The film and video awards will be given June 4 and the rest the following day. The award ceremony is known for its zany tone, with winners limited to five-word acceptance speeches, including Al Gore’s “Please don’t recount this vote.”
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