Unlikely Celebrities Are Stars On YouTube

"I'm not particularly good at anything," said Matt Harding, one of today's preeminent Internet stars. "I'm not exhibiting any particular skills. I like going to beautiful places and dancing badly."

Harding didn't set out to be an Internet celebrity. It just happened after he and a friend left his hometown of Seattle to travel the world.

"He said, 'Hey, you should do that stupid dance you used to do at work to annoy me and I'll record it with your camera," Harding told science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg. "And then we did and it turned out really funny."

They thought it was so funny, they posted it on YouTube, the video-sharing Web site. Apparently a lot of other people liked his global two-stepping. His video has received almost 6 million views.

"One of the really neat things about the Internet now and about entertainment on the Internet is that it's totally democratic," Harding said. "Anyone can do it. Anyone can find that thing that is really engaging to watch, and it's not up to the networks anymore — the traditional providers of entertainment for us to consume. It's up to everybody."

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Read more on Sieberg's Tech Talk blog

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Watch: Blending things that should go in a blender

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But many wondered, who is this person calling herself "Lonelygirl15" with all this time on her hands?

As Bree's virtual life got more complicated, Internet sleuths went to Miles Beckett who helped script the whole thing.

"I think people gravitated to Lonelygirl because they saw a little bit of themselves in her character," he said.

Lonelygirl15 is actress Jessica Rose who said she never expected it to become this popular.

"Yeah, definitely, I didn't expect it to go this far," she said. "I just thought that it was something I could put on my resume. I was fresh out of acting school. So for it to get this big was just really, really lucky and exciting."

Even though the secret is out — or maybe because it is — Lonelygirl15 is lonely no more. There are now 159 episodes. Greg Goodfried is one of the creators.

"Ya know, the views across the videos — between YouTube and our Web site — we're talking over 50 million views," he said.

Lonelygirl is now picking up sponsors. But Lonelygirl is still low-budget, shot with one camera, often in the suburban Southern California home of one of the producers' parents.

"On T.V. if you have a hit show, you become rich," Beckett said. "On the Internet, you can have a hit show [and] you will not become rich — at least not yet."

But it is possible to be an Internet star and make money? Just ask Tom Dickson.

Dickson invented one tough blender. He's the CEO of Blendtec, in Orem, Utah. They started posting homemade videos of Dickson pulverizing just about anything you can imagine in his company's products.

"Our marketing person came to me very excited," Dickson said. "And he said to me, 'You know, we've have 6 million hits in five days on YouTube.' And I said, 'Who tube?' I'd never heard of YouTube!"

Sure, to you it might look like just an ad. But at Blendtec they've found, like the Lonelygirl folks did, that it's all about making a connection. Dickson said he responds to suggestions viewers send to him.

"A lot of people, when we do something that's obvious — like cell phones or remotes or something like that — people say, 'Oh, that was my idea!' So everybody takes credit, and they feel like they're part of it now," he said.

So what lies ahead for our online celebrities? Tom Dickson, dancing Matt and Lonelygirl15 have all been nominated for YouTube awards. Beyond that, Jessica Rose's career seems to be taking off.

"I also did 'I Know Who Killed Me,'" she said. "I had a small part in that with Lindsay Lohan. She's really fun. I mean, it's awesome to get these opportunities that I never had before."

Harding is getting ready to take off again. He's got his own aptly-named Web site, and a gum company is sponsoring his third trip around the world. This time he wants people to dance with him and his fans to track him.

"You'll be able to click on each location and there'll be sort of a floating head of where I am now," Harding said. "You can click on it and see the latest pictures and the latest dancing clip."

And over at Blendtec, Dickson said he is selling more blenders.

"Thousands of percent more, yes," he said.