YouTube's upgrade

Nearly every day a star is born on YouTube.com, Reuters reports. It's like an interactive, online "American Idol," with much less buildup and much lower production values. Examples of YouTube idols: "Anthony Padilla, aka "smosh," now semifamous online for lip synching the Pokemon theme song, and littleloca, who fans recently outed as an out-of-work actress, but who presents herself on YouTube as an 18-year-old Latina living in East Los Angeles." But the news is, YouTube just got more personalizable. It unveiled a major upgrade with "channels," allowing users "to create playlists that can be shared with similar-minded fans." Half of the site's visitors are under 34, and they watch 50 million videos a day on it, Reuters adds.