Taipei, June 9 (CNA) The Taiwan-born co-founder of the popular video sharing Web site YouTube said in a "Web 2.0" summit in Taipei Saturday that the "user first" philosophy has always been his and his company's priority.
Steve Chen said the philosophy could very well be the reason for the success of YouTube. The summit invited heavyweights in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry to discuss various topics such as Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web services and software/hardware in the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
Chen, who was visiting Taiwan for the first time in two years, questioned the terms of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, however, saying that while it is difficult to define Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, personalization is the real Web trend.
This, he went on, is why YouTube has always maintained a user-first mentality and why he and his other co-founder Chad Hurley decided to sell the company to Google last year -- because Google also shares the same value and is capable of providing YouTube with solid technical support.
Chen and Hurley sold the company to Google for US$1.65 billion in October 2006.
However, the 29-year-old did not lose his motivation after becoming a billionaire overnight. Chen said his motivation came from always believing in the product and always trying to improve it.
He also predicted that by the end of 2008, a lot more videos will be viewed on mobile devices and said YouTube has been working toward this direction as well.
Chen, who currently holds the position of Chief Technology Officer for YouTube, was born in Taiwan and emigrated to the U.S. with his family aged 15. He left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign without graduating to work for online e-commerce Web site PayPal, where he met Hurley and Jawed Karim. The three founded YouTube in 2005.
In 2006, he was named by Business 2.0 magazine as one of the "the 50 people who matter now" in business. Earlier this year, he was named by Time magazine as one of the world's most influential people.
The summit participants also included Chunghwa Telecom Chairman Ho Chen Tan, Intel's Director of Marketing and Technical Services in Taiwan Stanley Huang, Google Taiwan's Head of Sales and Business Development Rebecca Kuei and Institute for Information Industry Executive Director Chen Ming-syan.