"They've got the audience,

YouTube actually encourages this – so long as the free posts are accompanied by paid versions.

He insists he can't quite recall, you know, the $1.65 billion moment.

It features a courageous but overmatched freshman named Brian Collins presenting the worst sports-highlight rundown in human history, culminating in the worst sportscaster catchphrase ever conceived: "Boom goes the dynamite."

Until about five minutes ago, remember, almost all video-entertainment content was produced and distributed by Hollywood. Period. That time is over. There was a time when advertisers could count on mass audiences for what Hollywood thought we should be watching on TV. That time is all but over.

The price tag for YouTube, just to put the investment in perspective, is what Target paid for 257 Mervyns department stores and four distribution centers in 13 states

"It's a new medium. It requires new storytelling techniques.

several people noted that everything in Bree's room seemed to come from Target

It hadn't taken them long to figure out, by trial and error, what worked in this new genre. Viewers wanted family and relationship drama mixed with a rich, mysterious backstory that could be explored and debated.

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.

Don't sell merchandise and don't use any copyrighted music without a license. If people buy Lonelygirl15 stuff thinking she is real, they could claim false advertising and sue.

It was a sly move: Post a video that comments on an already-popular vlogger and piggyback on the existing audience.

But he did persuade her to meet again the next day. It was at a crowded coffee shop – she figured she'd be safe. Beckett showed up alone and explained the plan this way: The project was a sketchbook for a film. If it was a success online, they could go to the studios and use the material as a screen test for both her and the story. That seemed to soften her. This was just a stepping stone to a feature film. She decided to give it a try.

But the series he created shows that Internet TV has arrived. The phenomenon is partly driven by technology – Lonelygirl15 wouldn't exist without the explosion of broadband and the advent of YouTube – and partly by the appeal of a hybrid form of storytelling.

In the process, the series is helping to invent the rhythm, grammar, and style of online storytelling

In short, they were planning to exploit the anonymity of the Internet to pull off a new kind of storytelling, and they worried they were on shaky legal ground.

In the games in the Sim series (SimCity, SimLife, SimAnt, SimHealth), you try to build a community, an ecosystem, or a public policy. The goal is to make a successful whole from complex, interrelated parts. Tim is 13, and among his friends, the Sim games are the subject of long conversations about what he calls Sim secrets. "Every kid knows," he confides, "that hitting Shift-F1 will get you a couple of thousand dollars in SimCity." But Tim knows that the Sim secrets have their limits. They are little tricks, but they are not what the game is about. The game is about making choices and getting feedback. Tim talks easily about the trade-offs in SimCity - between zoning restrictions and economic development, pollution controls and housing starts.