Company name	YouTube, LLC
Company slogan	Broadcast Yourself
Owner	YouTube LLC (2005–06)Google Inc. (2006–present)
Company logo
Caption	YouTube logo
Company type	Subsidiary,limited liability company
Foundation	February 2005
Founder	Steve Chen Chad HurleyJawed Karim
Area served	Worldwide
Location city	901 Cherry Ave,San Bruno, California
Location country
Key people	Salar Kamangar, CEOChad Hurley, Advisor
Homepage
Screenshot
Caption	Screenshot of YouTube's homepage
Url	(see list of localized domain names)
Registration	Optional (Only required for certain tasks such as viewing flagged videos, viewing flagged comments and uploading videos.)
Launch date
Current status	Active
Language	34 languages available through user interface
Advertising	Google AdSense
Alexa	3 ()
Website type	video hosting service

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005.

The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, Vevo and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.

Unregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 and older. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.

Company history

, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim]] YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, while Hurley commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible."

YouTube began as a venture-funded technology startup, primarily from a US$11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006. YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months.

The first YouTube video was entitled Me at the zoo, and shows founder Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.

YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005, six months before the official launch in November 2005. The site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43 percent and more than 14 billion videos viewed in May 2010. YouTube says that 35 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the US. It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. Alexa ranks YouTube as the third most visited website on the Internet, behind Google and Facebook.

The choice of the name www.youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, www.utube.com. The owner of the site, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being overloaded on a regular basis by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www.utubeonline.com. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006. Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing. In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales.

In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called "Shows". The move was intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney. In November 2009, YouTube launched a version of "Shows" available to UK viewers, offering around 4,000 full-length shows from more than 60 partners. In January 2010, YouTube introduced an online film rentals service, which is currently available only to users in the US.

In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, including 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League. According to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event.

On March 31, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: "We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter." In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as "nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined." In October 2010, Google published its third quarter financial results for the year, which stated that YouTube was serving two billion videos a week accompanied by advertising.

In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company.

Social impact

in the first YouTube video, Me at the zoo]] Before the launch of YouTube in 2005, there were few easy methods available for ordinary computer users who wanted to post videos online. With its simple interface, YouTube made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to post a video that a worldwide audience could watch within a few minutes. The wide range of topics covered by YouTube has turned video sharing into one of the most important parts of Internet culture.

An early example of the social impact of YouTube was the success of The Bus Uncle video in 2006. It shows a heated conversation between a youth and an older man on a bus in Hong Kong, and was discussed widely in the mainstream media. Another YouTube video to receive extensive coverage is guitar, which features a performance of Pachelbel's Canon on an electric guitar. The name of the performer is not given in the video. After it received millions of views The New York Times revealed the identity of the guitarist as Lim Jeong-hyun, a 23-year-old from South Korea who had recorded the track in his bedroom.

, one of YouTube's most-viewed videos.]] Charlie Bit My Finger is a viral video famous for formerly being the most viewed YouTube video of all time. It had over 245 million hits as of November 2010. The clip features two English brothers, with one-year-old Charlie biting the finger of his brother Harry, aged three. In Time's list of YouTube's 50 greatest viral videos of all time, "Charlie Bit My Finger" was ranked at number one.

YouTube was awarded a 2008 Peabody Award and cited for being "a 'Speakers' Corner' that both embodies and promotes democracy."

Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list. It said: "Providing a safe home for piano-playing cats, celeb goof-ups, and overzealous lip-synchers since 2005."

Criticism

Copyrighted material

YouTube has been criticized for failing to ensure that uploaded videos comply with copyright law. At the time of uploading a video, YouTube users are shown a screen with the message "Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or advertisements without permission, unless they consist entirely of content that you created yourself". Despite this advice, there are still many unauthorized clips of copyrighted material on YouTube. YouTube does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a takedown notice pursuant to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material. Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works". Since Viacom filed its lawsuit, YouTube has introduced a system called Video ID, which checks uploaded videos against a database of copyrighted content with the aim of reducing violations. In June 2010, Viacom's lawsuit against Google was rejected in a summary judgment, with U.S. federal Judge Louis L. Stanton stating that Google was protected by provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Viacom announced its intention to appeal the ruling.

In August 2008, a U.S. court ruled in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. that copyright holders cannot order the removal of an online file without first determining whether the posting reflected fair use of the material. The case involved Stephanie Lenz from Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, who had made a home video of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy", and posted the 29-second video on YouTube.

Privacy

In July 2008, Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site. The move led to concerns that the viewing habits of individual users could be identified through a combination of their IP addresses and log in names. The decision was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the court ruling "a set-back to privacy rights". U.S. District Court Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed the privacy concerns as "speculative", and ordered YouTube to hand over documents totaling around 12 terabytes of data. Judge Stanton rejected Viacom's request that YouTube hand over the source code of its search engine, saying that it was a trade secret.

Controversial content

YouTube has also faced criticism over the offensive content in some of its videos. The uploading of videos containing defamation, pornography, and material encouraging criminal conduct is prohibited by YouTube's terms of service. Controversial areas have included Holocaust denial and the Hillsborough Disaster, in which 96 football fans from Liverpool were crushed to death in 1989.

YouTube relies on its users to flag the content of videos as inappropriate, and a YouTube employee will view a flagged video to determine whether it violates the site's terms of service.

In October 2010, U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner urged YouTube to take down from its website videos of imam Anwar al-Awlaki, tied to the accused Fort Hood shooter, Christmas Day bomber, and attempted Times Square bomber, and on the U.S. targeted killing list, saying that by hosting al-Awlaki's messages, "We are facilitating the recruitment of homegrown terror." British security minister Pauline Neville-Jones commented: "These Web sites would categorically not be allowed in the U.K. They incite cold-blooded murder, and as such are surely contrary to the public good." In November 2010, YouTube removed from its site some of the hundreds of videos featuring al-Awlaki's calls to jihad. It stated that it had removed videos that violated the site’s guidelines prohibiting "dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts," or came from accounts "registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization." In December 2010, YouTube added "promotes terrorism" to the list of reasons that users can give when flagging a video as inappropriate.

User comments

Most videos enable users to leave comments, and these have attracted attention for the negative aspects of both their form and content. When Time in 2006 praised Web 2.0 for enabling "community and collaboration on a scale never seen before", it added that YouTube "harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred". The Guardian in 2009 described users' comments on YouTube as follows:

Juvenile, aggressive, misspelled, sexist, homophobic, swinging from raging at the contents of a video to providing a pointlessly detailed description followed by a LOL, YouTube comments are a hotbed of infantile debate and unashamed ignorance – with the occasional burst of wit shining through.

In September 2008, The Daily Telegraph commented that YouTube was "notorious" for "some of the most confrontational and ill-formed comment exchanges on the internet", and reported on YouTube Comment Snob, "a new piece of software that blocks rude and illiterate posts".

Filtering

Several countries have blocked access to YouTube by using Web filtering: , YouTube is blocked in the People's Republic of China. Morocco shut down access to YouTube in 2008. Thailand blocked YouTube between 2006 and 2007 due to offensive videos relating to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Turkey blocked access to YouTube between 2008 and 2010 after controversy over videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The block was lifted briefly but reimposed in November 2010. On December 3, 2006, Iran temporarily blocked access to YouTube, along with several other sites, after declaring them as violating social and moral codes of conduct. The YouTube block came after a video was posted online that appeared to show an Iranian soap opera star having sex. The block was later lifted and then reinstated after Iran's 2009 presidential election. On February 23, 2008, Pakistan blocked YouTube because of "offensive material" towards the Islamic faith, including display of the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. This led to a near global blackout of the YouTube site for around two hours, as the Pakistani block was inadvertently transferred to other countries. Pakistan lifted its block on February 26, 2008. Many Pakistanis circumvented the three-day block by using virtual private network software. In May 2010, following the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Pakistan again blocked access to YouTube, citing "growing sacrilegious content". On January 24, 2010, Libya blocked access to YouTube after it featured videos of demonstrations in the Libyan city of Benghazi by families of detainees who were killed in Abu Salim prison in 1996, and videos of family members of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi at parties. The blocking was criticized by Human Rights Watch.

Some schools have blocked access to YouTube, citing the inability to determine what sort of video material might be accessed by students.

Features

Video technology

Playback

Viewing YouTube videos on a personal computer requires the Adobe Flash Player plug-in to be installed in the browser. The Adobe Flash Player plug-in is one of the most common pieces of software installed on personal computers and accounts for almost 75% of online video material.

In January 2010, YouTube launched an experimental version of the site that uses the built-in multimedia capabilities of web browsers supporting the HTML5 standard. This allows videos to be viewed without requiring Adobe Flash Player or any other plug-in to be installed. The YouTube site has a page that allows supported browsers to opt in to the HTML5 trial. Only browsers that support HTML5 Video using the H.264 or WebM formats can play the videos, and not all videos on the site are available.

Uploading

Videos uploaded to YouTube by standard account holders are limited to 15 minutes in duration. When YouTube was launched in 2005, it was possible to upload longer videos, but a ten-minute limit was introduced in March 2006 after YouTube found that the majority of videos exceeding this length were unauthorized uploads of television shows and films. The 10-minute limit was increased to 15 minutes in July 2010. Partner accounts are permitted to upload longer videos, subject to acceptance by YouTube. File size is limited to 2 GB for uploads from YouTube web page, and to 20 GB if Java-based Advanced Uploader is used. In December 2010, YouTube announced that holders of standard accounts would be allowed to upload videos of unlimited length, provided that they have a good history of following the site's Community Guidelines and policy on copyright. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including .AVI, .MKV, .MOV, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, and .ogg and .ogv. These include video formats such as MPEG-4, MPEG, and .WMV. It also supports 3GP, allowing videos to be uploaded from mobile phones. Videos with progressive scanning or interlaced scanning can be uploaded, but for the best video quality, YouTube prefers interlaced videos to be deinterlaced prior to uploading. All the video formats on YouTube use progressive scanning.

Quality and codecs

YouTube originally offered videos at only one quality level, displayed at a resolution of 320x240 pixels using the H.263 Sorenson Spark codec, with mono MP3 audio. In June 2007, YouTube added an option to watch videos in 3GP format on mobile phones. In March 2008, a high quality mode was added, which increased the resolution to 480x360 pixels In November 2008 720p HD support was added so the YouTube player was changed from a aspect ratio to a widescreen . . With this new feature, YouTube began a switchover to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC as its default video codec. In November 2009, 1080p HD support was added. In July 2010, YouTube announced that it had launched a range of videos in 4k format, which allows a resolution of up to 4096x3072 pixels.

YouTube videos are available in a range of quality levels. The former names of standard quality (SQ), high quality (HQ) and high definition (HD) have been replaced by numerical values representing the vertical resolution of the video. The default video stream is encoded in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format, with stereo AAC audio.

In December of 2010, YouTube got rid of the option to automatically play videos in a specific format, depending on the URL, via putting "&fmt;=xx" ("xx" determines one of ten different two-digit numbers) in the URL.

1 fmt is an undocumented URL parameter that allows selecting YouTube quality mode without using player user interface. YouTube removed this option on December of 2010. 2 Approximate values based on statistical data; actual bitrate can be higher or lower due to variable encoding rate.

3D videos

In a video posted on July 21, 2009, YouTube software engineer Peter Bradshaw announced that YouTube users can now upload 3D videos. The videos can be viewed in several different ways, including the common anaglyph (cyan/red lens) method which utilizes glasses worn by the viewer to achieve the 3D effect.

Content accessibility

One of the key features of YouTube is the ability of users to view its videos on web pages outside the site. Each YouTube video is accompanied by a piece of HTML, which can be used to embed it on a page outside the YouTube website. This functionality is often used to embed YouTube videos in social networking pages and blogs. Embedding, as well as ranking and commenting, can be disabled by the video owner.

YouTube does not usually offer a download link for its videos, and intends for them to be viewed through its website interface. A small number of videos, such as the weekly addresses by President Barack Obama, can be downloaded as MP4 files. Numerous third-party web sites, applications and browser plug-ins allow users to download YouTube videos. In February 2009, YouTube announced a test service, allowing some partners to offer video downloads for free or for a fee paid through Google Checkout.

Platforms

Some smartphones are capable of accessing YouTube videos, dependent on the provider and the data plan. YouTube Mobile was launched in June 2007, and uses RTSP streaming for the video. Not all of YouTube's videos are available on the mobile version of the site.

Since June 2007, YouTube's videos have been available for viewing on a range of Apple products. This required YouTube's content to be transcoded into Apple's preferred video standard, H.264, a process that took several months. YouTube videos can be viewed on devices including Apple TV, iPod Touch and the iPhone. A TiVo service update in July 2008 allowed the system to search and play YouTube videos. In January 2009, YouTube launched "YouTube for TV", a version of the website tailored for set-top boxes and other TV-based media devices with web browsers, initially allowing its videos to be viewed on the PlayStation 3 and Wii video game consoles. In June 2009, YouTube XL was introduced, which has a simplified interface designed for viewing on a standard television screen.

Localization

On June 19, 2007, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localization system. {| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Country ! Language ! Launch date |- | | Portuguese (Brazil) | |- | | English (Ireland) | |- | | English and Chinese (Traditional) | |- | (Taiwan) | Chinese (Traditional) | |- | | English (New Zealand) | |- | | German | |- | | Russian | |- | Korea | Korean | |- | | Hebrew | |- | | English (India) and Hindi | |- | | Czech | |- | | Swedish | |- | | English (South African) |

The interface of the YouTube website is available in 29 different languages, including Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Slovene and Norwegian, which do not have local channel versions.

In March 2009, a dispute between YouTube and the British royalty collection agency PRS for Music led to premium music videos being blocked for YouTube users in the United Kingdom. The removal of videos posted by the major record companies occurred after failure to reach agreement on a licensing deal. The dispute was resolved in September 2009. In April 2009, a similar dispute led to the removal of premium music videos for users in Germany.

April Fools

YouTube has featured an April Fools prank on the site on April 1 of every year since 2008: 2008: All the links to the videos on the main page were redirected to Rick Astley's music video "Never Gonna Give You Up", a prank known as "Rickrolling". 2009: When clicking on a video on the main page, the whole page turned upside down. YouTube claimed that this was a new layout. 2010: YouTube temporarily released a "TEXTp" mode, which translated the colors in the videos to random upper case letters. YouTube claimed in a message that this was done in order to reduce bandwidth costs by $1 per second.

See also

Alternative media

CNN-YouTube presidential debates

Comparison of video services

Dailymotion Similar video sharing site located in Paris, France

List of Internet phenomena

List of YouTube personalities

Motion picture rating system#YouTube YouTube ratings

Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.

Viral video

YouTube Awards

YouTube Instant

YouTube Live

References

Bibliography

External links

YouTube mobile site

Category:YouTube Category:BigTable implementations Category:Companies based in San Mateo County, California Category:Entertainment websites Category:Free music Category:Google acquisitions Category:Google services Category:Internet advertising and promotion Category:Internet companies of the United States Category:Internet properties established in 2005 Category:Multilingual websites Category:Subtitling Category:Video hosting Category:Video on demand services Category:Web 2.0

Name	Weegee
Alt	Weegee exhibition
Caption	A Weegee exhibition at the Palazzo della Ragione in Milan, 2007
Birth name	Usher Fellig
Birth date	June 12, 1899
Birth place	Złoczów, Austrian Galicia (now Ukraine)
Death date	December 26, 1968
Resting place coordinates
Residence	New York City
Nationality	Austro–Hungarian
Ethnicity	Jewish
Citizenship	American
Other names	Arthur Fellig
Known for	Street photography of crime scenes or emergencies
Occupation	Photographer
Spouse	Margaret Atwood (1947-1950)

Weegee was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig (June 12, 1899 – December 26, 1968), a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography.

Weegee worked in the Lower East Side of New York City as a press photographer during the 1930s and '40s, and he developed his signature style by following the city's emergency services and documenting their activity. Much of his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death. Weegee published photographic books and also worked in cinema, initially making his own short films and later collaborating with film directors such as Jack Donohue and Stanley Kubrick.

Early life

Weegee was born Usher Fellig in Złoczów (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), near Lemberg, Austrian Galicia. His name was changed to Arthur when he emigrated with his family to live in New York in 1909.

Photographic career

Fellig's nickname was a phonetic rendering of Ouija, due to his frequent, seemingly prescient arrivals at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities.

Most of his notable photographs were taken with very basic press photographer equipment and methods of the era, a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera preset at f/16, @ 1/200 of a second with flashbulbs and a set focus distance of ten feet. He was a self-taught photographer with no formal photographic training and a relentless self-promoter. He is sometimes said to have had no knowledge of the New York art photography scene, and yet in 1943 five of his photographs were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. These works were included in their exhibition entitled, Action Photography. He was later included in another MoMA show organized by Edward Steichen, Later the title was used again for a naturalistic television police drama series, and in the 1980s, it was adopted by a band, Naked City (band), led by the New York experimental musician John Zorn.

Weegee experimented with 16mm filmmaking himself beginning in 1941 and worked in the Hollywood industry from 1946 to the early 1960s, as an actor and a consultant. He was an uncredited special effects consultant and credited still photographer for Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film . His accent was one of the influences for the accent of the title character in the film, played by Peter Sellers.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Weegee experimented with panoramic photographs, photo distortions and photography through prisms. Using a plastic lens, he made a famous photograph of Marilyn Monroe in which her face is grotesquely distorted yet still recognizable. For the 1950 movie The Yellow Cab Man, Weegee contributed a sequence in which automobile traffic is wildly distorted. He is credited for this as "Luigi" in the film's opening credits. He also traveled widely in Europe in the 1960s, where he photographed nude subjects.

In 1980 Weegee’s widow, Wilma Wilcox, Sidney Kaplan, Aaron Rose and Larry Silver formed The Weegee Portfolio Incorporated to create an exclusive collection of photographic prints made from Weegee’s original negatives. As a bequest, Wilma Wilcox donated the entire Weegee archive to the International Center of Photography in New York. This 1993 gift became the source for several exhibitions and books include "Weegee's World" edited Miles Barth (1997) and "Unknown Weegee" edited by Cynthia Young (2006).

The lead character of Bernzy, played by Joe Pesci, in the 1992 film The Public Eye, was strongly inspired by Fellig.

Key themes

Weegee’s images are loyal to the tabloid tradition of fast, “hot”, sensationalized crime scenes and acts of vulgarity, but they also transcend the tabloids in terms of their aesthetic and powerful visions of the underbelly of the Great Depression. More than this: they create worlds of time that whilst, on one hand, manipulate and deceive a viewer, also create a subjective experience that is perhaps more believable than that of his contemporaries.

The immediacy of Weegee’s photographs is critical to the experience of the images as first hand documentations of actual events. Since the inception of the camera, photographs have always been privileged as conveyors of truth and complete objectivity, as discussed by Susan Sontag in On Photography, “it is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stencilled off the real…” Weegee’s tabloid photographs that capture the scene of the crime, in particular, embrace a viewer’s desire for both experiencing the grotesque action and being a part of the crowd.

The importance of immediacy here is epitomized through the fact that Weegee was the only photographer in New York at the time who had permission to use a police radio in order to get to the “scene of the crime” before any other press, and sometimes, even the authorities themselves.

Weegee developed his photographs in a homemade darkroom in the back of his car. This provided an instantaneous result to his work that emphasized the nature of the tabloid industry and literally gave the images a “hot off the press” sensation.

Voyeuristic scenes of murder and mayhem established for the mass audience of the newspapers were Weegee’s specialty and his occupation. Their popularity reveals a culture at once desperate to be distracted from the barbaric acts of World War Two and also curious to witness the same brutality. By tuning in to the darker desires of humanity, Weegee’s crime images provide voyeuristic worlds in which the veracity of time is crucial in their reception and effect.

Spontaneity is the second influence on Weegee’s manipulation of the perception of time in his photographs. All of Weegee’s images relish in their impression of spontaneous, unframed action: whether the subjects are completely unaware of the camera, or they are captured unexpectedly by the camera, or they are already posing for another photograph. The fact that the majority of his scenes are those of the emergency also aids in the simulation of spontaneity- his subjects are simply so absorbed and frantic in the action happening around them that they have no interest in the camera. Spontaneity is discussed by Vicki Goldberg as “motion... cut short in progress. People turn, collapse, struggle, flee. Emotions are snapped as they burst: fear, anguish, shock, despair, anger. What a polite society keeps private spills out in emergencies, and Weegee unsparingly records it.”

References

Further reading

Weegee by Weegee (1961, autobiography)

Miles Barth, Weegee's World

Kerry William Purcell, Weegee (Phaidon, 2004)

Anthony Lee, Weegee and Naked City (Defining Moments in American Photography)

External links

New York Times, June 20, 2008, "Crime Was Weegee’s Oyster"

Wired News, June 29, 2009, "‘You Gotta Get It’ — Words of Wisdom From Weegee"

Weegee's World: Life, Death and the Human Drama

Category:1899 births Category:1968 deaths Category:People from Zolochiv Category:Ukrainian Jews Category:American photographers Category:Austro-Hungarian Empire immigrants to the United States Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from New York City Category:American photojournalists Category:Culture of New York City

Name	Tila Tequila
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Tila Nguyn
Alias	Tila Tequila
Born	October 24, 1981Singapore is a Singaporean-born American model, singer, rapper, and television personality. She is known for her appearances in the men's magazines Stuff, Maxim, Penthouse, her role as host of the Fuse TV show featuring performance striptease, Pants-Off Dance-Off and her position as the most popular artist on MySpace (according to page views) circa April 2006, along with Jeffree Star. She was raised in Houston, Texas, and now lives in Los Angeles, California. Her MTV reality show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila aired for two seasons.
Name	Tequila, Tila
Alternative names	Nguyễn, Tila
Short description	Singer-songwriter, glamour model
Date of birth	October 24, 1981
Place of birth	Singapore

Category:Living people Category:1981 births Category:21st-century women writers Category:American actors of Asian descent Category:American bloggers Category:American female singers Category:American memoirists Category:American musicians of Vietnamese descent Category:American people of French descent Category:American pop singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American television personalities Category:American women writers Category:American writers of Asian descent Category:Lesbian actors

Category:Lesbian musicians Category:Lesbian writers Category:LGBT Asian Americans Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:LGBT television personalities Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:Musicians from Houston, Texas Category:Musicians from Los Angeles, California Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from Queens Category:Pop singer-songwriters Category:Singaporean immigrants to the United States

Name	Simon Cowell
Background	non_performing_personnel
Birth name	Simon Phillip Cowell
Born	October 07, 1959Lambeth, London, England, UK
Died
Origin	Elstree, Hertfordshire, UK
Occupation	Artists and repertoire (A&R;) executiveTelevision producerTelevision personality Entrepreneur
Years active	1979–present
Label	EMIE&S; MusicFanfare RecordsBMGS RecordsSony Music EntertainmentSyco
Associated acts	Westlife, Sinitta, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Sonia Evans, Five, Robson & Jerome, Ultimate Kaos, WWF Wrestlers, Zig and Zag, Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, Joe McElderry, Shayne Ward, Il Divo, Susan Boyle, Paul Potts, JLS and more

Simon Phillip Cowell (born 7 October 1959) is a British music executive, television producer and entrepreneur. He is known in the United Kingdom and in the United States for his role as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, and American Idol. He is also the owner of the television production and music publishing house Syco.

Cowell is notorious as a judge for his blunt and often controversial criticisms, insults and wisecracks about contestants and their abilities. Cowell is known for combining activities in the television and music industries, having promoted singles and records for various artists, including television personalities. He was most recently featured on the seventh series of The X Factor and the fourth series of Britain's Got Talent.

In 2010, British magazine New Statesman listed Cowell at number 41 in a list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".

Early life

Cowell was born in Lambeth, London, England and brought up in Elstree, Hertfordshire. His father, Eric Philip Cowell (1918–1999), Cowell's paternal grandparents, Joseph Cowell and Esther Malinsky, were English Jews, and his maternal grandfather was Scottish. He has one brother and two half-brothers; younger brother Nicholas Cowell, half-brother Tony Cowell, and half-brother Michael Cowell. Michael is the oldest, followed by Tony, Simon and Nicholas respectively.

Cowell attended the independent school Dover College as did his brother, but left early before attending the sixth form. He took a few menial jobs—including, according to Tony, working as a runner on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining—but did not get along well with colleagues and bosses, until his father who was executive at the recording giant EMI Music Publishing, managed to get him a job in the mail room.

Career

Cowell's father's connections originally got him rehired as the assistant to an A&R; man. From there onwards, Simon worked his way up and eventually got promoted to a music publishing position but left during the early 1980s to form E&S; Music with his boss at EMI, Ellis Rich (later Chairman of the Performing Right Society). The company had several hit records at one point with five singles in the UK top 40. The offices were in a converted gentleman's washroom in the NCP car park on Brewer Street in London's Soho district. Cowell left by mutual agreement a few years later. He worked for Iain Burton, manager of choreographer Arlene Phillips, co-founder of dance group Hot Gossip and of nascent independent record label Fanfare Records. Cowell worked with Burton for eight years at Fanfare where he achieved his first real success in the music industry, becoming a partner and building Fanfare into a highly successful 'indie' pop label. Fanfare had numerous top ten hits with various pop artists and particularly Sinitta, selling more than half a million of her debut single 'So Macho', and more than half a million albums of 'Rondo Veneziano'. Next in 1984, Cowell and Burton met up with Pete Waterman for the first time.

Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman formed the songwriting and record producing trio known as Stock Aitken Waterman. Stock Aitken Waterman helped Fanfare during the second half of the 1980s producing several hit singles for Sinitta and licensing The Hit Factory SAW Compilation Albums to Fanfare. Next in 1989, Fanfare's parent, Public Company, found itself in difficulties, forcing Fanfare into the hands of BMG, and an in-debt Cowell was forced to move back in with his parents. Later that year, he became an A&R; consultant for BMG.

Subsequently, Cowell signed up a number of acts to S-Records that became successful, including Curiosity Killed the Cat, Sonia Evans, Five, Westlife, Robson & Jerome, and Ultimate Kaos. He also released several novelty recordings featuring the likes of wrestlers of the World Wrestling Entertainment, Teletubbies, Zig and Zag and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, that were huge successes.

In 2006, Cowell signed to two more record-breaking deals. In the USA, he agreed to remain as a judge on American Idol, earning £20 million ($33 million) per season for another five years. He also has a deal with FOX which allows his production company to broadcast Got Talent and American Inventor on other networks, but he may not appear on them. In the UK, he signed a "golden handcuffs" deal with ITV, worth approximately £6.5 million a year for three years, which gave ITV rights to his talent show The X Factor, a British singing talent show, and Grease Is The Word, a musical talent show to find the stars of a Grease production in London's West End. In late 2005, he signed a new contract to remain working for Sony BMG.

In 2010, Cowell finalised a deal which secures the longterm business future of Syco with Sony Music Entertainment. The deal will also see him launching a US version of X Factor on 11 September 2011.

Idol franchise and Il Divo

Cowell was given the role of judge on the first series of Pop Idol by then ITV Controller of Entertainment Claudia Rosencrantz in 2001, he was then judge on the first season of American Idol in 2002. With his notoriously critical reputation, Cowell is likened to TV personalities, such as Judge Judy, and Weakest Links Anne Robinson. Though comparable to Anne Robinson, Cowell has expressed his dislike for her and has commented in an interview, "I hate her and I hate her show because it's just an act". Cowell's prominence grew, fed by his signature phrase, "I don't mean to be rude, but ...", inevitably followed by an unsparingly blunt appraisal of the contestant's talents, personality, or even physical appearance. A lot of these one-liners were the product of coaching that Cowell received from noted publicist Max Clifford. Cowell also appeared on the one-off World Idol programme in 2003, where it became clear that each country's version of the Idol had attempted to come up with its own "Simon Cowell" type personality. In 2003, Cowell placed No 33 on Channel 4's list of the all-time 100 Worst Britons. Cowell's S Records signed the top two finishers of the first season of Pop Idol, Will Young and Gareth Gates, both of whom went on to have No 1 UK hits. Efforts begun in 2001 materialised in 2004, when Cowell returned to his group manufacturing roots with his latest brainchild, the internationally successful operatic pop group Il Divo, consisting of three opera singers and one pop singer of four different nationalities. Inspired by the success of Il Divo, Simon created a child version, Angelis, beating competition from many similar groups emerging at Christmas 2006.

On 11 January 2010, Cowell's exit from American Idol was made official. The 2010 season was Cowell's last on the show. It was also announced that Fox has acquired the rights to an American version of Cowell's popular British show, The X Factor, which is slated to begin production in autumn 2011.

The X Factor

In 2004, with Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh, Cowell was a judge on the first series of the British talent show The X Factor, which he created using his production company, Syco. The X Factor was an instant success with the viewers and finished its seventh series in 2010. In 2006, he was voted the tenth most terrifying celebrity on television in a Radio Times poll consisting of 3,000 people.

The winner of The X Factor third series, Leona Lewis, was signed to Cowell's label Syco and has gone on to become an international star, with number one singles and album sales around the world. Cowell returned for a fourth series on 18 August 2007 alongside Osbourne, Walsh and new judge, Dannii Minogue. Walsh had previously been sacked from the judging panel by Cowell for the fourth series, and was subsequently replaced by Brian Friedman, who was a judge on Grease Is the Word. Walsh was later brought back a week into the auditions by Cowell when he and Osbourne realised that they missed Walsh and that without him, there was no chemistry between the judges. Cowell returned for the fifth series in 2008, with Walsh, Minogue and new judge Cheryl Cole, as Sharon Osbourne decided to quit before the show began.

The X Factor has been confirmed to return to Australian television in 2010 on the Seven Network with Kyle Sandilands, Ronan Keating, Guy Sebastian and Natalie Imbruglia as judges. Matthew Newton will host the show. Auditions will begin in May 2010.

Cowell will also launch the US version of the hit show in September 2011 on American broadcaster Fox. He will be a judge both on the UK and US editions of the show which will air at similar times of the year.

Got Talent franchise

Following the success of the Idol and X-Factor franchises, Cowell, his company Syco, and its business partners developed a talent show format open to performers of any kind, not only singers, but also dancers, instrumentalists, magicians, comedians, novelty acts, and so on. The origins of the Got Talent format can be traced to the British show Opportunity Knocks, which began as a radio programme in the 1940s and later transferred to television, where it was an ITV staple for several decades. Looking further back, Opportunity Knocks had its roots in the variety show traditions of British music hall and American vaudeville.

Cowell is the executive producer of America's Got Talent, which debuted in June 2006, along with Fremantle producers of the Idol series, but he does not appear on the show due to the terms of his American Idol contract. The show was a huge success for NBC, drawing around 12 million viewers a week, and beating So You Think You Can Dance on FOX (produced by rival and Idol creator Simon Fuller).

Britain's Got Talent debuted on ITV in June 2007. Cowell appears as a judge alongside Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. The show was a ratings success and second and third seasons followed in 2008 and 2009. The third series featured a publicity coup when Susan Boyle made a global media impact with her regional audition performance comparable to that of any previous talent show series winner .

American Inventor

On 16 March 2006, Simon Cowell's next competition show, American Inventor, debuted on ABC. Fledgling entrepreneurs from across the United States competed to see who could come up with the best new product concept. The 2006 winner, Janusz Liberkowski, received $1 million and the opportunity to develop his idea into a business. The show returned one more time in 2007 for a second season.

Celebrity Duets

In 2006, Cowell executive-produced Celebrity Duets, which was described as "an Idol show for Hollywood superstars." The show was hosted by Wayne Brady, and its judges were Marie Osmond, Little Richard and David Foster.

Grease is the Word

Cowell was also the executive producer of Grease Is the Word for ITV. This show set out to find performers to play Danny and Sandy in the 2007 West End revival of Grease. It was hosted by Zoe Ball and judged by Britons David Ian and Sinitta and Americans David Gest and Brian Friedman. The musical theatre casting concept had already been introduced by the BBC with the ratings hit How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, but Cowell's show wasn't the hoped for success. He himself said, "It has been slaughtered by the critics - and rightly so. It is far too similar to our other formats."

Rock Rivals

Cowell collaborated with UK production company Shed Media to produce 2008 ITV drama series Rock Rivals, which is based on an X Factor type show.

Other activities

Cowell has been involved in charity work for many years. He supports children from The Association Of Children's Hospices and invites them backstage to the screenings of The X Factor. When he can, he stops by some of the hospices to visit the children. In view of his charitable works, particularly the production of the charity single Everybody Hurts in aid of victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, as well as his services to the music industry, there was considerable media speculation as to whether Cowell would receive a knighthood in the Queen's 2010 Birthday Honours, a proposal allegedly put forward by former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Cowell stated that he believed his chances of receiving the honour were "zero" following what he described as being a "royal row"; ultimately Cowell did not receive an honour in the list.

In December 2003, Cowell published his autobiography titled I Don't Mean to be Rude, but.... In it, he told the whole story of his childhood, his years working in music and experiences on Pop Idol, Pop Stars Rivals, and American Idol, and finally, his tips for being successful as a pop star.

Cowell has appeared as a guest voice in an episode of The Simpsons ("Smart and Smarter"), in which he gets beaten up by Homer Simpson (while criticising Homer's punches). His voice was also heard on an episode of Family Guy ("Lois Kills Stewie"), in which he told Stewie that his singing was so awful that he should be dead. He made an MTV Movie Award-winning cameo appearance as himself in Scary Movie 3, where he sits in judgment during a battle rap (and subsequently gets killed by gunfire for criticising the rappers). He also appears in the DVD version of Shrek 2 as a judge in Far Far Away Idol, and also provided the voice.

He appeared on an episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (the original British version) and Saturday Night Live in 2004. Cowell has also guest-starred (filling in for Regis Philbin) in the popular talk show Live with Regis and Kelly during American Idol's finalist week in early 2006. Cowell was once the fastest "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" on BBC's motoring show Top Gear, driving a Suzuki Liana around the show's test track in a time of 1:47.1. When Top Gear retired the Liana along with its rankings after the eighth series, Cowell was the eighth fastest overall and the third fastest non-professional driver. On 11 November 2007 Cowell yet again appeared on Top Gear, achieving a time of 1:45.9 thus putting him ahead of Gordon Ramsay and back at the top of the table. Cowell introduced entertainer Dick Clark at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards. He was seen on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice where he donated £25,000 for a fun fair ticket. Cowell has also appeared on the MTV shows Cribs and Punk'd. On Punk'd, Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson set him up to believe his $400,000 Rolls Royce was stolen and had caused an accident by using a nearly-identical car.

Cowell was chosen as the first subject of the re-launched This Is Your Life in an episode broadcast on 2 June 2007. He was presented with the Red Book by Sir Trevor McDonald while presenting American Idol.

On 1 July 2007 Cowell appeared alongside Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest as a speaker at the Concert For Diana, held at Wembley Stadium.

Simon Cowell was a partner in the Royal Ascot Racing Club, a thoroughbred horse racing syndicate which owned the 2005 Epsom Derby winner, Motivator.

In December 2010 he was added as a new entry to the latest edition of Who's Who.

Personal life

In late 2002, Cowell started dating longtime friend Terri Seymour. In November 2008, TV Guide reported that Cowell and Seymour had since broken up.

Cowell is the godfather of pop singer Sinitta's adopted children.

Upon his appearance on Top Gear, it was revealed that Cowell pays more than £21.7m per year in income tax, suggesting that his taxable income is over £54.25m per year with income tax at the time approximately 40%. (NB: UK Income Tax 40% for earnings over £34,600).

Cowell has admitted to using Botox.

Cowell has a $22 million, home in Beverly Hills.

In May 2009, in the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper, Cowell revealed that he is often plagued by "dark moods and miserable thoughts". He claims that he has considered seeking therapy for this, stating that it would be a 'long session'.

Cowell became engaged to make up artist Mezhgan Hussainy in February 2010. They met on the set of American Idol.

Cowell endorsed David Cameron to be Prime Minister and claimed that he has the 'substance and the stomach to navigate us through difficult times'.

References

External links

Simon Cowell at itv.com/xfactor

Simon Cowell for PETA

Simon Cowell on World Top 100 A&R; Chart

New York Times: How a Hit Almost Failed Its Own Audition

Reviews and short bio of Simon Cowell

Playboy Interview: Simon Cowell, February 2007

Interview, HitQuarters Oct 2001

Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:American Idol participants Category:American music industry executives Category:Anglo-Scots Category:A&R; people Category:British music industry executives Category:British people of Jewish descent Category:British racehorse owners and breeders Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English memoirists Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:English record producers Category:Got Talent series Category:Idol series judges Category:Old Dovorians Category:Pop Idol Category:Reality television judges Category:The X Factor judges Category:The X Factor (UK)

Nigahiga is a popular YouTube channel created by Japanese-American Ryan Higa and friends Sean Fujiyoshi, Tim Enos and Tarynn Nago (known collectively as "The Yabo Crew")'. Since relocating to Las Vegas to study filmmaking at UNLV, Higa's videos are usually solo efforts except during school breaks when he sometimes visits Hilo and collaborates with the Yabo Crew. They are known for their YouTube comedy videos, which have been viewed over 600 million times. As of December 21, 2010, Higa's YouTube channel, nigahiga, has over 3 million subscribers and is the most subscribed YouTube channel of all time ahead of such prominent Youtube users as Smosh, RayWilliamJohnson, ShaneDawsonTV and Fred.

Content

Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi started posting YouTube videos of themselves lip-synching to songs in mid 2006 while attending Waiakea High School. They quickly expanded beyond songs, with a variety of other comedic pieces. Occasional guest appearances are made by Tim Enos, Ryan Villaruel, Kyle Chun, and Tarynn Nago, collectively known as the "Yabo Crew".

On Christmas Eve of 2008, Higa and Fujiyoshi's two most popular videos, How to be Gangster and How to be Emo, were removed due to copyright violations. On January 21, 2009, nigahiga's account was temporarily suspended and he was told to remove more copyrighted videos. Because of this, nigahiga's lip synching videos were all removed (with the exception of You're Beautiful, which was audio swapped), and so were most of his videos that include copyrighted music. As of now, all the music that is being played in nigahiga's videos is music Higa composed himself. How to be Gangster and How to be Emo were put back on nigahiga's channel in late August 2009, only to be removed a few days later, along with How to be Ninja and How to be Nerd. Higa and Fujiyoshi used to have over 90 videos, but due to copyright incidents, their number has dropped to 74. In spring 2010, How to be Ninja, How to be Gangster and How to be Emo'' were made public once more.

Films

In 2008, Los Angeles producer Derek Zemrak offered to help them create their first feature-length film. The resulting film, Ryan and Sean's Not So Excellent Adventure, was directed by Richard Van Vleet and released on November 14, 2008. It was shown in sold out theaters in Hawaii and California. The DVD was released on July 14, 2009 in the USA.

Ryan and Sean's Not So Excellent Adventure is about a down on his luck movie producer, played by Michael Buckley, who is seeking out famous celebrities in order to make a hit movie in 30 days or risk being fired. He chooses Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi after discovering the popularity of their YouTube videos. He invites them to Hollywood to make a movie. They accept the offer, and run into some amusing situations on the way.

Ninja Melk, a 26 minute short film about ninjas, was released in August 2009. The plot revolves around a ninja master named Master Ching Ching sending his student Lapchung (played by Bryson Murata) to find a replacement, finding Ryan and Sean to catch the evil Bokchoy (played by Tim Enos) and his henchwoman, Gina (played by Tarynn Nago).

A new independent 35 minute film he created with Wong Fu Productions called "Agents of Secret Stuff" was uploaded on Ryan's channel on November 24, 2010. It features some other popular YouTube users as well as actors such as Aki Aleong. "Agents of Secret Stuff" is about a teenage A.S.S. (Agent of Secret Stuff) (Higa) who is sent undercover to a high school to protect one of the students, a girl named Taylor (Arden Cho) from the A.S.S.'s enemy, the S.I.N.S. (Society Involving Not-So-Good Stuff).

Ryan Higa's and Sean Fujiyoshi's YouTube channel, nigahiga, was created on July 20, 2006. By December 21, 2010, it had reached 3,000,000 subscribers, making it the site's most subscribed channel. By November 2010, their videos had been viewed over 630 million times.

Videography

;Advertisement spoofs

The iPod Human

The ShamWOOHOO!

ChildrensBop!

The Portobello Mushroom Burger

The Big Bouncing Inflatable Green Ball

Hook on Fonik

I broke my Nexus One!

The Snuggo

;Dear Ryan

Defeating a Ninja

Superhero

Dude vs. Wild – The Desert

Makeup Guru

Basketball-Tubing Weather Lamp

''Are you a liar

;"How to be" series

How to be Ninja

How to be Gangster

How to be Emo

How to be Nerd

How to be UFC Fighter

How to be at the Premiere

How to be a Youtube Celebrity

;Lip-synced songs

You're Beautiful (audio swapped)

Circle Circle Dot Dot (removed)

I'm a Gangster (removed)

Wannabe (removed)

Fergalicious (removed)

Savin' Me (removed)

My Heart Will Go On (removed)

Destiny's Angels (removed)

Milk and Cereal (removed)

Numa Numa (removed)

Irreplaceable (removed)

London Bridges (removed)

Barbie Girl (removed)

I Love Them Hoes (removed)

Promiscuous (removed)

I Just Want You To Know (removed)

Sukiyaki (private)

;Movies in Minutes series

Titanic

The Grudge

Twilight

Harry Potter

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Transformers: Revenge of the Household Objects

Saw 12

Twilight: New Moon

Facebook the Movie

;Nigahiga songs

Yank Dat Cameltoe (Crank Dat)

Sorry Fans, Blame My ADD

So Damn Stupid!

I Miss You Soulja Boy

The Ninja Glare (In the Ayer)

Tweet Whore

I'm a Chingstah!

Like a Good Boy (Like A G6)

Shed a Tear (Rocketeer)

;Best Crew

Best Dance Crew

BEST CREW vs POREOTICS

BEST CREW -The Audition

;Ninja Melk

Ninja Melk Preview

Ninja Melk Trailer

Ninja Melk

;Off the Pill

Off The Pill: Stink People

Off The Pill: Farts

Off The Pill: Nosy People

Off The Pill: 2009

Off The Pill: BIEBER FEVER

;Rants

Rant on Bullying

Ranting about Music (removed)

Rant on Liars (removed)

Rant on Comments (removed)

Rant on Nosy People (removed)

Rant on Stink People (removed)

Rant on ADD (removed)

Violence (removed)

Rant on Asian Dramas

Rant on Music (Remade)

;Ryan and Sean's Not So Excellent Adventure

The Super Secret!

Ryan and Sean's NSEA

;Skitzo

Introductions

The Halloween Story

The PSA

Valentine's Day

Despicable Me

;The Ryan Higa Show

The Ryan Higa Show: Helga Fawntinilla

The Ryan Higa Show: Milo Ventimiglia

;Word of the Day

Word of the Day – Pwned

Word of the Day – Bromance (featuring Jay Park)

;Agents of Secret Stuff

NEW NIGAHIGA MOVIE (TEASER)

Agents of Secret Stuff Trailer (Official)

Agents of Secret Stuff

;Million Subscribers Celebrations

1,000,000 Subscribers

2,000,000 Subscribers!.

3,000,000 Subscribers!

;Other

Adjusting the Sails (private)

The Number 21 (private)

Beautiful Girls [Ghetto Style] (private)

Mind Geek (private)

Munky Tag (private)

The Stalking Mangina Preview

Subliminal Messaging (private)

Hilo Puppets

Vote for REVO

A Message to All Haters

Sean Returns!

Youtube Live – Wth is a VLog

Thanksgving Campaign

Copyrighted

Nigahiga Tee-Shirts (private)

Why Chris Brown Beat Rihanna

Will Ferrell Calling me out? (private)

House

I wanna play a game (private)

braces?! (private)

Things I Like (private)

REVO (private)

sponsored (private)

5 Nigahiga facts (private)

Asians Wrestle (private)

References

Ryan Higa Snatches No.1 Spot on YouTube

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=35893fc0bb72f272e5fcb0c113c98c26

External links

Official Site www.HigaTV.com

Official homepage of Ryan and Sean's Not So Excellent Adventure

Category:Living people Category:American Internet personalities Category:YouTube video producers Category:American people of Japanese descent Category:1990 births Category:Internet memes

Name	Mark Zuckerberg
Caption	Zuckerberg at South by Southwest in 2008.
Birth name	Mark Elliot Zuckerberg
Birth date	May 14, 1984
Birth place	White Plains, New York
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard College (dropped out in 2004)
Occupation	CEO/President of Facebook (24% shareholder in 2010)
Years active	2004–present
Networth	US$6.9 billion (2010)
Relatives	Randi Zuckerberg (sister)
Awards	Time Person of the Year 2010
Home town	Dobbs Ferry, New York
Website	Facebook.com/MarkZuckerberg

}} Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer scientist, software developer and philanthropist best known for creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is CEO and president. It was co-founded as a private company in 2004 by Zuckerberg and classmates Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes while they were students at Harvard University. In 2010, Zuckerberg was named Time magazine's Person of the Year.

Personal life

Zuckerberg was born in White Plains, New York to Karen, a psychiatrist, and Edward, a dentist. Mark and three sisters, Randi, Donna, and Arielle, were brought up in Dobbs Ferry, New York. although he has since described himself as an atheist.

At Ardsley High School he had excelled in the classics before in his junior year transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy, where Zuckerberg won prizes in science (math, astronomy and physics) and Classical studies (on his college application, Zuckerberg listed as non-English languages he could read and write: French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek) and was captain of the fencing team. In college, he was known for reciting lines from epic poems such as The Iliad. , Facebook is blocked by that country's Internet firewall. in 2008.]]

On Zuckerberg's Facebook page, he listed his personal interests as "openness, making things that help people connect and share what's important to them, revolutions, information flow, minimalism". Zuckerberg sees blue best because of red–green colorblindness; blue is also Facebook's dominant color.

Software developer

Early years

Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software as a child in middle school. His father taught him Atari BASIC Programming in the 1990s, and later hired software developer David Newman to tutor him privately. Newman calls him a "prodigy," adding that it was "tough to stay ahead of him." Zuckerberg also took a graduate course in the subject at Mercy College near his home while he was still in high school. and received a rating of 3 out of 5 from PC Magazine. Microsoft and AOL tried to purchase Synapse and recruit Zuckerberg, but he chose instead to enroll at Harvard College in September 2002.

Harvard years

By the time he began classes at Harvard, he had already achieved a "reputation as a programming prodigy," notes Vargas. He studied psychology and computer science and belonged to Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity. In his sophomore year, he wrote a program he called CourseMatch, which allowed users to make class selection decisions based on the choices of other students and also to help them form study groups. A short time later, he created a different program he initially called Facemash that let students select the best looking person from a choice of photos. According to Zuckerberg's roommate at the time, Arie Hasit, "he built the site for fun." Hasit explains:

We had books called Face Books, which included the names and pictures of everyone who lived in the student dorms. At first, he built a site and placed two pictures, or pictures of two males and two females. Visitors to the site had to choose who was "hotter" and according to the votes there would be a ranking.

The site went up over the weekend, but by Monday morning the college shut it down because its popularity had overwhelmed Harvard's server and prevented students from accessing the web. In addition, many students complained that their photos were being used without permission. Zuckerberg apologized publicly, and the student paper ran articles stating that his site was "completely improper."

At the time of Zuckerberg's "fun" site, however, students had already been requesting that the university develop a web site that would include similar photos and contact details to be part of the college's computer network. According to Hasit, "Mark heard these pleas and decided that if the university won't do something about it, he will, and he would build a site that would be even better than what the university had planned." An earlier inspiration for Facebook may have come from Phillips Exeter Academy, the prep school from which Zuckerberg graduated in 2002. It published its own student directory, “The Photo Address Book,” which students referred to as “The Facebook.” Such photo directories were an important part of the student social experience at many private schools. With them, students were able to list attributes such as their class years, their proximities to friends, and their telephone numbers.

Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto, California, with Moskovitz and some friends. They leased a small house that served as an office. Over the summer, Zuckerberg met Peter Thiel who invested in the company. They got their first office in mid-2004. According to Zuckerberg, the group planned to return to Harvard but eventually decided to remain in California. They had already turned down offers by major corporations to buy out Facebook. In an interview in 2007, Zuckerberg explained his reasoning:

It's not because of the amount of money. For me and my colleagues, the most important thing is that we create an open information flow for people. Having media corporations owned by conglomerates is just not an attractive idea to me. On July 21, 2010, Zuckerberg reported that the company reached the 500 million-user mark. When asked whether Facebook could earn more income from advertising as a result of its phenomenal growth, he explained:

I guess we could ... If you look at how much of our page is taken up with ads compared to the average search query. The average for us is a little less than 10 percent of the pages and the average for search is about 20 percent taken up with ads ... That’s the simplest thing we could do. But we aren’t like that. We make enough money. Right, I mean, we are keeping things running; we are growing at the rate we want to. Zuckerberg said that "it's OK to break things" "to make them better." Facebook instituted "hackathons" held every six to eight weeks where participants would have one night to conceive of and complete a project. Zuckerberg ranked number 23 on the Vanity Fair 100 list in 2009. In 2010, Zuckerberg was chosen as number 16 in New Statesman's annual survey of the world's 50 most influential figures.

Wirehog

A month after Facebook launched in February 2004, i2hub, another campus-only service, created by Wayne Chang, was launched. i2hub focused on peer-to-peer file sharing. At the time, both i2hub and Facebook were gaining the attention of the press and growing rapidly in users and publicity. In August 2004, Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Adam D'Angelo, and Sean Parker launched a competing peer-to-peer file sharing service called Wirehog. It was a precursor to Facebook Platform applications. Traction was low compared to i2hub, and Facebook ultimately shut Wirehog down the following summer.

Platform and Beacon

On May 24, 2007, Zuckerberg announced Facebook Platform, a development platform for programmers to create social applications within Facebook. Within weeks, many applications had been built and some already had millions of users. It grew to more than 800,000 developers around the world building applications for Facebook Platform. On July 23, 2008, Zuckerberg announced Facebook Connect, a version of Facebook Platform for users.

On November 6, 2007, Zuckerberg announced a new social advertising system called Beacon, which enabled people to share information with their Facebook friends based on their browsing activities on other sites. For example, eBay sellers could let friends know automatically what they have for sale via the Facebook news feed as they list items for sale. The program came under scrutiny because of privacy concerns from groups and individual users. Zuckerberg and Facebook failed to respond to the concerns quickly, and on December 5, 2007, Zuckerberg wrote a blog post on Facebook taking responsibility for the concerns about Beacon and offering an easier way for users to opt out of the service.

Legal controversies

ConnectU lawsuits

Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally making them believe he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com (later called ConnectU). They filed a lawsuit in 2004 but it was dismissed on a technicality on March 28, 2007. It was refiled soon thereafter in federal court in Boston. Facebook countersued in regards to Social Butterfly, a project put out by The Winklevoss Chang Group, an alleged partnership between ConnectU and i2hub. On June 25, 2008, the case settled and Facebook agreed to transfer over 1.2 million common shares and pay $20 million in cash.

In November 2007, confidential court documents were posted on the website of 02138, a magazine that catered to Harvard alumni. They included Zuckerberg's social security number, his parents' home address, and his girlfriend's address. Facebook filed to have the documents removed, but the judge ruled in favor of 02138.

Pakistan criminal investigation

In June 2010, Deputy Attorney General Muhammad Azhar Sidiqque of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan launched a criminal investigation into Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes after a "Draw Muhammad" contest was hosted on Facebook. The investigation also named the anonymous German woman who created the contest. Sidiqque asked the country's police to contact Interpol to have Zuckerberg and the three others arrested for blasphemy. On May 19, 2010, Facebook's website was temporarily blocked in Pakistan until Facebook removed the contest from its website at the end of May. Sidiqque also asked its United Nations representative to raise the issue with the United Nations General Assembly.

Paul Ceglia

On June 30, 2010, Paul Ceglia, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, upstate New York, filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84% ownership of Facebook and seeking monetary damages. According to Ceglia, he and Zuckerberg signed a contract on April 28, 2003 that for an initial fee of $1,000 entitled Ceglia to 50% of the website's revenue, as well as an additional 1% interest in the business per day after January 1, 2004, until website completion. Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.com until January 1, 2004. Facebook management dismissed the lawsuit as "completely frivolous". Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told a reporter that Ceglia's counsel had unsuccessfully sought an out-of-court settlement. In an interview with ABC World News, Zuckerberg stated he was confident he had never signed such an agreement. At the time, Zuckerberg worked for Ceglia as a code developer on a project named "StreetFax". Judge Thomas Brown issued a restraining order on all financial transfers concerning ownership of Facebook until further notice; in response, Facebook removed the case to federal court and asked that the state court injunction be dissolved. According to Facebook, the injunction would not affect their business and lacked any legal basis.

Depictions in media

The Social Network

A movie based on Zuckerberg and the founding years of Facebook, called The Social Network, was released on October 1, 2010, and stars Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg. After Zuckerberg was told about the film, he responded, "I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive." Also, after the film's script was leaked on the Internet and it was apparent that the film would not portray Zuckerberg in a wholly positive light, he stated that he wanted to establish himself as a "good guy".

The Social Network is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, which the book's publicist once described as "big juicy fun" rather than "reportage." The film's screenwriter Aaron Sorkin told New York magazine, "I don't want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling", adding, "What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?"

Disputed accuracy

Author Jeff Jarvis, of the forthcoming book Public Parts, interviewed Zuckerberg and believes Sorkin has made too much of the story up. He states, "That's what the internet is accused of doing, making stuff up, not caring about the facts."

According to David Kirkpatrick, the author of The Facebook Effect:The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World,"the film is only "40% true. . . he is not snide and sarcastic in a cruel way, the way Zuckerberg is played in the movie." He says that "a lot of the factual incidents are accurate, but many are distorted and the overall impression is false," and concludes that primarily "his motivations were to try and come up with a new way to share information on the internet."

On October 9, 2010, Saturday Night Live lampooned Zuckerberg and Facebook. Andy Samberg played Zuckerberg. The real Zuckerberg was reported to have been amused: "I thought this was funny."

Stephen Colbert awarded a "Medal of Fear" to Zuckerberg at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010, "because he values his privacy much more than he values yours."

Zuckerberg authorized an account of his and Facebook's life written by David Kirkpatrick, the former technology editor at Fortune magazine, which came out in 2010, entitled The Facebook Effect.

Philanthropy

Zuckerberg donated an undisclosed amount to Diaspora, an open-source personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service. He called it a "cool idea."

Zuckerberg founded the Start-up: Education foundation. On September 22, 2010, it was reported that Zuckerberg had arranged to donate $100 million to Newark Public Schools, the public school system of Newark, New Jersey. Critics noted the timing of the donation as being close to the release of The Social Network, which painted a somewhat negative portrait of Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg responded to the criticism, saying, "The thing that I was most sensitive about with the movie timing was, I didn’t want the press about 'The Social Network' movie to get conflated with the Newark project. I was thinking about doing this anonymously just so that the two things could be kept separate." Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker stated that he and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had to convince Zuckerberg's team not to make the donation anonymously.

On December 8, 2010, Zuckerberg released a statement that he had become a signatory of The Giving Pledge.

References

External links

Official

Document list

Dynamic list of Mark Zuckerberg's patents and patent applications

Multimedia

Video of interview by Leslie Stahl – Sixty Minutes

Video of Interview by Rick Stengel – Time Magazine

Category:American atheists Category:American billionaires Category:American computer businesspeople Category:American computer programmers Category:American Internet personalities Category:American Jews Category:Businesspeople in information technology Category:Child businesspeople Category:Facebook employees Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Jewish atheists Category:People from Westchester County, New York Category:Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Category:1984 births Category:Living people Category:Time Persons of the Year

Name	Lili Rocha
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Lindinalva de Souza Rocha
Alias	Lili Rocha
Brith place	Bahia, Brazil, Brazil
Instrument	Vocals
Genre	Pop, pop rock, rock
Occupation	Singer, musician
Label	IDEA Musica, Milan, Italy
Url	Official website

Lindinalva de Souza Rocha (born December 23), better known by her stage name Lili Rocha, is a pop/rock singer from Bahia, Brazil.

Life and career

It seems not long ago that Lili Rocha was singing in the streets and squares of her small native town in Brazil. Lili’s great passion for music led her to be named the winner of the prominent “Gabriela” talent show in Ilhéus, Brazil , where she outshined other hopeful young singers. From there, Lili began the journey of a lifetime, performing shows throughout Portugal, Italy, Switzerland. Lili Rocha fell in love with the essence of Europe, and made a permanent move to Switzerland, continuing to pursue her dreams. Between time spent working and touring in her new environment, Lili particularly gained huge support from the Italian community of Switzerland. Soon after, Lili attended Accademia di Musica Italiana and studied under maestro Antonio Guglielmi with whom she also recorded her first songs. As her career progressed, Lili Rocha was discovered by producer, Matthias Oertle, with whom she works closely on many of her successful projects. Not far away from her humble roots, Lili’s ambition and creative drive continue to further her toward achieving her dreams.

Lili Rocha’s four released albums, containing songs in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, have found great success, reigning in a dedicated fan base for this adult contemporary/soft rock songstress, with over 21 million profile views on MySpace. The first album, Me Deixa Sonhar (2003), boasts modest success in Lili’s native Brazilian market, and sold over 80,000 records in Italy. Lili promoted her first album back in her hometown, appearing in numerous TV and live performances throughout Brazil’s largest cities, Sao Paolo, and Rio. Lili Rocha's growing success left audiences anxiously awaiting her next release. The following year, Lili launched her second album Recomeçar (2004) in Europe. Recomeçar (2004) did not fall short of the fans’ expectations, going gold in Italy with 40,000 copies sold. Lili’s third studio release, titled Amuleto (2007), turned out to be a lucky charm indeed. Shortly after its release, Lili Rocha embarked on the Amuleto concert tour, performing for thousands of frenzied fans and traveling to many major cities throughout Italy and Spain. The spirit of over eighty shows along the tour was captured and compiled as Lili’s first live album, Lili Rocha Live (2009). This album, released as both CD and DVD, was another huge hit, going gold in Italy and showcasing her true talent as a live performer.

Present

Lili Rocha recently completed her first English album in the US, set to expand her fan base and break into the American music scene. After some time spent between Florida, New York, and Los Angeles, she completed two music videos, which are soon to be released for fans this Spring!

Musical influences

Rocha has been influenced by a wide range of musicians including Tina Turner, Neil Young, Pete Droge, and Sheryl Crow.

Discography

Me Deixa Sonhar (2003)

Recomeçar (2004)

Amuleto (2007)

Lili Rocha Live (2009)

Lili Rocha Rocks! (2010)

Notes

External links

Official Website

Original Myspace Page

Lili Rocha Myspace Page

Official Facebook Fan Page

Official Twitter Page

Lili Rocha Official YouTube Page

Official iLike Page

Official Reverbnation Page

Official Fanbridge Page

Official Jango Music Page

Official EPK

Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Brazilian pop singers Category:Italian-language singers Category:Portuguese-language singers Category:Spanish-language singers Category:English-language singers Category:People from Bahia

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), better known by her stage name Katy Perry, is an American pop musician. Born in Santa Barbara, California, and raised by Christian pastor parents; Perry grew up listening to only gospel music and sang in her local church as a child. After earning a GED during her freshman year of high school, she began to pursue a career in music. As Katy Hudson, she released a self-titled gospel album in 2001, which due to the closing of her record label, was deemed unsuccessful. She later recorded an album with production team The Matrix and completed the majority of a solo album from 2004–5; neither of which were released.

After signing with Capitol Music Group in 2007, her fourth record label in seven years, she adopted the stage name Katy Perry and released her first Internet single "Ur So Gay" that November, which garnered public attention; but failed to chart. She rose to fame with the release of her second single "I Kissed a Girl" in 2008, which went on to top international charts. Perry's first mainstream studio album One of the Boys followed later that year and subsequently, became the thirty-third best selling album worldwide of 2008. It was accredited platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America, while "I Kissed a Girl" and her second single "Hot n Cold" both received multi-platinum certifications. Her sophomore studio album Teenage Dream was released in August 2010 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. The album included hit singles "California Gurls", "Teenage Dream" and "Firework", all of which topped the charts on the Billboard Hot 100 and worldwide.

Perry was credited as a guest judge on the seventh series of the British television show The X Factor; has released a fragrance called "Purr"; and will appear in the upcoming 2011-film The Smurfs. Perry had a long relationship with Travie McCoy; she married Russell Brand on October 23, 2010.

Biography

1984–2006: Early life and career beginnings

Perry was born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson in Santa Barbara, California on October 25, 1984 to Mary (née Perry), an evangelist who grew up in Southern California and had "a tempestuous first marriage in Zimbabwe", She has an older sister and younger brother. Perry's maternal aunt and uncle were screenwriter Eleanor Perry and director Frank Perry, through whom she is also related to Charles M. Schwab, the founder of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

Perry was incorporated into her parents' ministry She grew up listening to gospel music, was not allowed to listen to what her mother called "secular music", and attended Christian schools and camps. She took her GED after her freshman year at Dos Pueblos High School and decided to leave school in the pursuit of a career in music. Her sister practiced with cassette tapes, while Perry took the tapes herself when her sister was not around. She rehearsed the songs and performed them in front of her parents, who suggested she take vocal coaching. She grabbed the opportunity and began taking lessons at the age of nine and continued until she was sixteen. She later enrolled in at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and studied Italian opera for a short period of time. In Nashville, Perry started recording demos and was taught by country music veterans on how to craft songs and play guitar. Performing as Katy Hudson, she released the self-titled Gospel-rock album in 2001. The album was due for release in 2005,

Perry signed to Columbia Records in 2004. However, the label was not amenable with her vision, not putting her in the "driver's seat". She made a cameo appearance in Carbon Leaf's video, "Learn to Fly".

2007–09: One of the Boys and MTV Unplugged

Before being dropped by Columbia, its then publicity executive Angelica Cob-Baehler recommended Perry to Capitol A&R; Chris Anokute while at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Keen to hear more, Anokute was sent a DVD, featuring a video of "Simple", and a three-song demo. It was after hearing the demo of "Waking Up in Vegas" that Anokute became convinced of Perry's star talent. He showed the demo to his boss Jason Flom, then head of Capitol Music Group, telling him, "I've found the next Avril Lavigne meets Alanis Morissette." Flom proved to be less enthusiastic, however; he wasn't convinced the demos were good enough and was wary about an artist that had already been dropped by two major labels. Anokute refused to give up and eventually his persistence together with that of new Virgin employee, Cob-Baehler, paid off. Perry was signed to Capitol Music in early 2007.

She went on the next step of promoting the album, undertaking a two-month tour of radio stations. The album's official lead single, "I Kissed a Girl", was released on May 6, 2008. Perry's A&R;, Chris Anokute, told HitQuarters how, despite being himself convinced it was a "career record", the song and its controversial theme met with strong resistance at the label, "People said, 'This is never going to get played on the radio. How do we sell this? How’s this going to be played in the bible belt?'" On June 12, 2008, Perry appeared as herself on the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless,

One of the Boys was released on June 17, 2008 to mixed critical reviews. The album has reached number nine on the Billboard 200, and has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Perry released her second single, "Hot n Cold", which became her second top three single in dozens of countries around the world, including the United States where it reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100, Perry was nominated in five categories at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, including Best New Artist and Best Female Video, but lost to Britney Spears. She won Best New Act at the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards, which she co-hosted, and Best International Female Artist at the 2009 BRIT Awards. On February 9, 2009, both "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" were certified three-time platinum by Recording Industry Association of America for individual digital sales of over three million.

The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which features Perry, was later released via the team's label, Let's Hear It, during Perry's solo tour. When the release date was scheduled, "I Kissed a Girl" had been charting well. Matrix member Lauren Christy spoke to Perry about the decision, but she wanted to hold the release until the fourth single of One of the Boys had been dispatched. Despite their communication, The Matrix was released on January 27, 2009, via iTunes Store. In December 2008, Perry apologized to British singer Lily Allen for remarks in which she called herself a "skinnier version" of her, saying she meant it as a joke. Allen retaliated and told a British radio station that she "happen[ed] to know for a fact that she [Perry] was an American version" of her because their record company needed "to find something controversial and 'kooky'" like her.

On May 16, 2009, Perry performed at the opening ceremony of the annual Life Ball in Vienna, Austria. In June 2009, lawyers acting for Katy Perry opposed the recent trademark of Australian fashion designer Katie Perry who uses her own name to market loungewear. Some media outlets reported this as a lawsuit, which Katy Perry has denied on her blog. Katie Perry the designer reports on her blog that at a hearing with IP Australia on July 10, 2009, the singer's lawyers withdrew their opposition to the trademark. During the summer of 2009 Perry filmed a cameo appearance for Get Him to the Greek; her scene, in which she kisses her future fiancé Russell Brand was cut, and does not appear in the final film. Discussing the issue with MTV, Perry hypothesized there may have been some fear that seeing the two make out would have taken viewers out of the experience. In 2009, Perry was featured on two singles: a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" in August (the idea for the collaboration came after Perry's tour that featured 3OH!3 as the supporting act). The song was released over iTunes on September 8, 2009; and "If We Ever Meet Again", the fourth single off Timbaland's album Shock Value II in December. In October 2009, MTV Unplugged revealed that Perry was one of the artists to perform for them, and that she would be releasing a live album of the performance, including two new tracks, "Brick by Brick" and Fountains of Wayne cover "Hackensack". The album was released on November 17, and includes both a CD and a DVD.

2010–present: Teenage Dream

Perry appeared as a guest judge alongside Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh during the Dublin audition stage of the seventh series of the British television show The X Factor on June 28, 2010 (later televised on August 28). She was one of the many celebrities chosen to fulfil the role of judge whilst Dannii Minogue was on maternity leave. She later returned to the show on October 17 to perform "Firework". Perry's second mainstream studio album was titled Teenage Dream and was released in August 2010. The first single from the album was titled "California Gurls". The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the fastest rising single from a Capitol Records artist since Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" in 1967. The cover art for Teenage Dream is a painting by Will Cotton in which depicts Perry lying naked on clouds of cotton candy; resembling the shots of Perry in the video for "California Gurls". The booklet of the physical edition of the album, in keeping with the theme of cotton candy, has a cotton candy scent. The album's second single "Teenage Dream" was released in July 2010. "Firework" is the album's third single.

Katy Perry appeared at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010. She was nominated for two awards and presented the award of "Best Male Video" with Nicki Minaj to Eminem. On September 14, she returned to her old high school, Dos Pueblos High School, where she performed a short set for the school's students. Perry performed "Hot n Cold" with Elmo from Sesame Street, which was originally to appear on the forty-first-season premiere of the educational children's program on September 27, 2010. However, four days before the scheduled airing, Sesame Workshop announced, "In light of the feedback we've received on the Katy Perry music video ... we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of Sesame Street, which is aimed at preschoolers. Katy Perry fans will still be able to view the video on YouTube." The main reason was that parents complained about what appeared to be a great amount of cleavage shown by her dress. Perry shot the video for Firework in Budapest in September 2010. An open casting call drew an unprecedented 38,000 applicants. She proceeded to perform at a concert in Budapest on October 1, her first concert in Central and Eastern EuropePerry has announced her own fragrance to be released in autumn of this year, named "Purr". It will come in a cat-shaped bottle, and will be available through Nordstrom stores.

Musical style and themes

Perry has a contralto vocal range. Among Perry's musical influences are Alanis Morissette, pop rockers Cyndi Lauper, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Shirley Manson, and Freddie Mercury, Perry expects to record more pop songs for her next album.

Perry is artistically involved in her projects, especially in the writing process. Since she could play guitar, she would start writing songs at home and present it to her producers. Perry is mostly inspired by specific moments of her life. She said it is easy for her to write songs about heartbreak. The songs have been respectively labeled as being homophobic and promoting homosexuality, as well as "lez ploitational".

Public image

Perry is known for her unconventional style of dress. Her fashion has caught the attention of designers, who were giving her nearly as much attention as fans of her music. The picture was defended as only an effort to give Perry a "sexy, harder edge". She has appeared in FHM Magazine's 100 Sexiest Women poll twice, ranking at #23 in 2009 and #37 in 2010.

Personal life

Perry dated Gym Class Heroes frontman Travie McCoy, whom she met in a recording studio in New York, on and off for several years. After more than a year of friendship and casual dating, they became serious with their relationship right before they embarked on the 2008 Warped Tour. Perry and McCoy broke up in December 2008. The two began dating again in early 2009 and broke up again a few months later. Perry first met British comedian Russell Brand in the summer of 2008 when Perry filmed a cameo for Brand's film Get Him to the Greek. Perry and Brand began dating after meeting again in September 2009 at the MTV Video Music Awards, where Brand, as host, remarked, "Katy Perry didn't win an award and she's staying at the same hotel as me, so she's gonna need a shoulder to cry on. So in a way, I'm the real winner tonight." The couple became engaged in December 2009 when Brand proposed to Perry while vacationing in India. In a July 2010 YouTube interview, Perry said Brand would be a "perfect" father. Perry has stated that she plans to take dual British citizenship when she marries Brand. "One of the first things I'll do is apply for dual citizenship. I'm not too sure if I have to take a test as I've not had time to look into it. But England is like my second home". Perry and Brand married on October 23, 2010 near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India, the same location where Brand had proposed. They were married in a traditional Hindu ceremony.

Discography

Katy Hudson (2001)

One of the Boys (2008)

Teenage Dream (2010)

Tours

Hello Katy Tour (2009)

California Dreams Tour (2011)

Filmography

Television

{| class="wikitable sortable" !Year !Title !Role !class="unsortable"|Notes |- |2008 | |Herself |Episode 8914 |- |2008 |Wildfire |Herself |"" (Season 4, episode 8) |- |2010 | American Idol |Guest judge |"Season 9, episode 5" |- |2010 |The X Factor |Guest judge |"Series 7, episode 2" |- |2010 |Sesame Street | Herself | Online special (deleted from televised episode) |- |2010 | The Simpsons | Herself | 1 episode, "The Fight Before Christmas" |- |2011 | How I Met Your Mother | Zoey's cousin | 1 episode, "Oh Honey" |}

Films

{| class="wikitable sortable" !Year !Title !Role ! class="unsortable"|Notes |- |2011 | |Smurfette |Voice |- |2011 | |TBA |Cameo |- |}

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Official website

Category:1984 births Category:Living people Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from California Category:American bloggers Category:American Christians Category:American contraltos Category:American dance musicians Category:American female guitarists Category:American female pop singers Category:American film actors Category:American musicians of German descent Category:American people of Portuguese descent Category:American pop rock singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American voice actors Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Capitol Records artists Category:English-language singers Category:Female rock singers Category:Musicians from California Category:People from Santa Barbara, California Category:The X Factor judges

Name	Connie Talbot
Background	solo_singer
Born	November 20, 2000
Origin	Streetly, Walsall, West Midlands, England, UK
Instrument	Vocals
Years active	2007–present
Genre	Pop
Occupation	Singer
Label	Rainbow Recording Company
Url	http://www.connietalbot.com

Connie Talbot (born 20 November 2000) is an English child singer from Streetly, Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands. She rose to fame in 2007 when she reached the final of the television talent show Britain's Got Talent, where she lost to Paul Potts. Talbot was supposed to sign with Sony BMG but the label pulled out of the deal due to her age.

Talbot signed with Rainbow Recording Company and released her debut album Over the Rainbow in the UK on 26 November 2007. The album was re-released 18 June 2008 with a new track listing, and the first single from the album, a cover of Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds", was released on 10 June. Songs from Over the Rainbow are to be featured in an upcoming video game about Talbot.

Despite its negative critical reception, Over the Rainbow has sold over 250,000 copies worldwide and reached number one in three countries. Since the initial album release, Talbot has performed publicly and on television in Europe, the U.S. and across Asia, where her music had gained recognition through YouTube. Her second album, Connie Talbot's Christmas Album, was released on 24 November 2008; her third, Holiday Magic, was released in late 2009. On top of her musical career, Talbot continues to attend primary school and lives in Streetly with her family.

History

Britain's Got Talent and Sony BMG

Talbot initially auditioned for the first series of television reality show Britain's Got Talent for fun, but her confidence increased when Simon Cowell, whom she is said to have idolised, The judges expected a "joke" performance and she had never taken singing lessons, but Talbot's initial performance received international press coverage. She reached the final round after winning her semi-final with a live performance of "Ben" by Michael Jackson. On the night of the final, she sang The Wizard of Oz's "Over the Rainbow", but lost to Paul Potts as a result of the call-in vote. Talbot and Potts had been joint favourites to win the series. According to journalist and Britain's Got Talent judge Piers Morgan, Talbot's performances resulted in many children, including Faryl Smith, auditioning for the second series of the show. After his victory, Series 2 winner George Sampson spoke of his participation in the first series, where he was knocked out before the live shows, saying "I don't think I had any shot of winning last year ... When you look at the standard of Paul Potts and Connie Talbot. Paul Potts is out of this league, and Connie is out of this league - I wasn't good enough." Talbot voted for Sampson, saying "I liked his dancing - he was good on the lamppost". Talbot's mother, Sharon, said she was told that her daughter "...was too young to be their sort of artist", adding "We have been told to look for a company which looks after children." In a statement, the label said "there was some deliberation over the possibility of recording with Connie ... However, the decision not to proceed was made with the best intentions for Connie, taking into consideration her age and that it would not be right to do so at this time." Before the album was released, there was much speculation about Talbot and the album, with music experts describing her as potentially being "the next Charlotte Church". on 12 October 2007]] The team behind the album consisted of John Arnison, who also managed Gabrielle and Billy Ocean, and Marc Marot, former managing director of Island Records. Arnison revealed that he and his team "are not going to give [Talbot] singing lessons – we don't need to", and said that when he met Talbot, he was "blown away". A schedule was worked out allowing Talbot to continue with her normal school activities while recording the album in her aunt Vicky's spare bedroom, which her mother described as "a better solution [than Sony BMG offered] which has not robbed her of her childhood". The album was certified gold in early December, with Talbot being presented a gold disc by Phillip Schofield on This Morning.

In late 2007, public appearances by Talbot included headlining the Great Bridge Christmas and Winter Festival, which local police threatened to cancel unless crowds clamouring to reach the tent in which Talbot was performing could be brought under control. TV appearances included GMTV and Channel 5 news, both on 26 November 2007. Nick Levine, of Digital Spy, said in a review of the album that Talbot had a "sweet, pure voice", but that there is "no nuance or depth to her performance". However, he said that "There's something inherently wrong about awarding a star rating to a seven-year-old", and that "the decidedly adult concept of musical merit should have nothing to do with [her music]", awarding the album 2/5. The first single from the album, "Three Little Birds", was released in June 2008, and a video for the song was shot in Jamaica. Asian press attributed her success to her videos on YouTube, with the Sun.Star mentioning that her most viewed video had been watched over 14 million times, Following the tour, it was reported that the album had reached number one on the charts in Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong, Talbot has rerecorded the album for the game, but there are other elements that need to be completed. The game was scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2009, The U.S. version was eventually released on 14 October, with Talbot appearing on American television shows including The Ellen DeGeneres Show to publicise the release.

Christmas Album and Holiday Magic

In November 2008, it was announced that Talbot had produced a series of new songs for an album. It is a Christmas themed album, News was also released of a one-off Christmas special to be shown on ITV1 in the days leading up to Christmas, featuring footage of Talbot's journey to America and a "secret concert" at her primary school. The documentary, Christmas with Connie, was shown on ITV Central on 18 December. Talbot appeared at Walsall's HMV branch shortly after the release of her Christmas Album to sign copies and meet fans. She then embarked on a promotional tour making stops around the world, which included a performance at Ewha Womans University in Korea, and a performance on the A Heart for Children television charity gala in Berlin, Germany. She returned home in mid December, to have "a quiet family Christmas". There are plans for a promotional trip to the U.S. in 2009. Reviewing the album for FemaleFirst magazine, Ruth Harrison gave it 4/5, saying that Talbot has "a great voice when it comes to swing, but lets us down in parts".

In April 2009, Talbot again travelled to the U.S. in order to publicise her new single, a cover of "I Will Always Love You". The single was released in the U.S. on 7 April, along with a newly recorded "You Raise Me Up". Talbot then travelled to the U.S. on 30 April, and returned on the 2 May. Appearances included a performance on Good Day New York on Fox Broadcasting Company's WNYW. The single peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Sales. She lives with her mother, Sharon, her father Gavin, a self-employed property maintenance engineer, her brother Josh, and her sister, Mollie. Talbot drew confidence in Britain's Got Talent from the belief that her grandmother was watching, and vowed to win the show in her memory. | 1 | 3 | 8 Worldwide: 250,000+ | align=left|

UK: Gold

Taiwan: Platinum Hong Kong: Platinum | 1 | rowspan=2| Over The Rainbow |- | 2009 |align=left| "I Will Always Love You" | - | 4 |}

References

External links

Official website

Official channel on YouTube (Former)

[ Connie Talbot] at Allmusic

Connie Talbot on MySpace

Category:2000 births Category:Living people Category:English child singers Category:English female singers Category:Britain's Got Talent contestants Category:People from Walsall (district) Category:English pop singers