YouTube refused to sell ads appended to either end of a video

. #15 The previous videos had gotten between 50,000 and 100,000 views after a week, but this one logged 50,000 in its first

The previous videos had gotten between 50,000 and 100,000 views after a week, but this one logged 50,000 in its first two hours.

Goodfried's advice was simple. "If anyone asks point-blank if you're real, don't answer the question," he said. "Don't lie to people. The answer is no answer. In my mind, it's the equivalent of not lying. But if people talk to Bree like she's Bree, that's fair game."

#2 Will advertisers risk associating themselves with violence, pornography, hate speech, or God knows what lurks out there one click away?

that so many people are already on YouTube

Everyone else wants to see what everyone else is seeing and enjoying."

When he got to college, Flinders dreamed up an alter ego – an awkward, geeky homeschooled girl. As a camp counselor, he told fireside tales about her experiences. He wrote short stories about her, and when he tried to make it as a writer in Hollywood, he put her in his screenplays.

But nobody bought his scripts: Agents and producers didn't think much of the character he had created. After working a few years as an assistant to an independent director and struggling to stay out of debt, he left town and moved in with his grandmother in Merced. He supported himself by writing a draft of a film for an aspiring producer in Maryland; it was about a serial killer.

Beckett says. After four years of medical school and a year of residency, the 27-year-old dropped out of the

#4 The YouTube community was sucked into the plot and speculated endlessly about Bree's faith. Some thought she was Mormon; others insisted she was a Satanist. Another group tried to figure out where she lived: The leading guess was somewhere in the Midwest. Viewers spent hours Googling the possibilities and posting their results on YouTube.

"I don't want you to ever set foot in another TGI Fridays," he said, explaining that he'd pay her #14 $500 a week to play Bree full time . #13 In return, she had to stay home as much as possible and wear sunglasses and a hat when she went out. For Rose, it was a dream come true – she was a working actress. She just couldn't tell anyone.

so his father, a marketing executive at an IT company, agreed to invest in the newly formed Lonelygirl15 production company. Beckett immediately called Rose