NEW YORK (AP) – The co-founders of the popular video-sharing site YouTube are among the winners of the annual Webby online achievement awards announced Tuesday.

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 US$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.”

Source: Yahoo News

~LC