YouTube CEO Chad Hurley

www.youtube.com

How celebrities help the site: "A lot of the stuff that plays well with the YouTube audience is more organically generated," says YouTube spokesman Spencer Crooks. He points out that videos like Nick Jonas trying to make a difficult basketball shot and actress Jessica Alba having a staring contest with her computer may not become viral hits, but they attract hundreds of comments and dozens of video responses from dedicated fans. Fans get "a personal connection with the people they idolize," and celebrities get "to be themselves and interact with their fans,""Crooks says. And YouTube, of course, gets a ton of traffic.