YouTube’s Chad Hurley Tapped for Streamys Visionary Award

Today the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Web Television announced that it has selected YouTube’s Co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley to receive the Academy’s inaugural Visionary Award at the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards this Sunday night. The annual Streamy Visionary Award honors leaders and innovators who have made a significant contribution to the digital entertainment community.

“I’m honored to be recognized with the Visionary Award,” said Hurley about the honor. “Thanks to the YouTube community, the media platform we created has grown into a destination where billions of people connect and shape the world through video each day.”

And connect people it does—YouTube serves over a billion videos every single day. There’s also that oft-quoted, and ever-growing, statistic that every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. One way or another, YouTube intersects and shapes the future of web video viewing and the future of online shows. Many have attributed the site for popularizing the concept of open embedding of videos across the internet, allowing for rapid sharing of video content. Open embedding is what allows sites like ours to bring the shows we cover directly to our readers without having to click people away to some clunky destination site.

To help honor Chad and his team’s work in building the world’s largest media site many of the top YouTube community members will be appearing at the Streamy Awards including the #1 most subscribed YouTuber Ryan Higa (NigaHiga), Shane Dawson, SMOSH, Philip De Franco (sxePhil), ShayCarl, Lisa Donovan (LisaNova), Joe Penna (MysteryGuitarMan), TheWillofDC, Michael Buckley (What the Buck?!), Lucas Cruikshank (Fred), iJustine, The Fine Brothers, Dave Days, KassemG, Rhett & Link, Marina Orlova (HotForWords) and more.

Another mind-blowing statistic: combined these YouTubers have racked up over 3 Billion(!) views.

Watch the Streamy Awards, hosted by comedian Paul Scheer, LIVE this Sunday April 11th starting at 5:30 PM (PT) / 8:30 PM (ET) on Streamys.org. You can also watch the show LIVE on your iPhone through the free Streamy Awards app developed by Metranome that was just released into Apple app store. Download it today to get a sneak peek at what’s in store for Sunday night’s show.

Top photo credit: Joi Ito; Bottom photo credit: The Bui Brothers