For Stanford University student Feross Aboukhadijeh, what started off as a bet fueled by youthful ambition and technical bravado, ended up an Internet hit and quite possibly a job.
Last week, Aboukhadijeh, 19, was just an ordinary, albeit talented, college student as he tested out Google Instant, the Web giant's new predictive search results feature. He was immediately impressed on its debut Wednesday but also inspired. To his roommate, he said, "I bet you I can build YouTube Instant in an hour." And his roommate took him up on the bet.
Aboukhadijeh didn't quite make the hour deadline, but three hours later, YouTube Instant was born. The site lets people search the enormous YouTube video database in real time.
He spent a couple more hours Thursday sprucing up the user interface. And before going to sleep that night, he posted his work to his Facebook page.
Next morning , he received countless e-mails congratulating him, a bevy of interview requests, a server flooded with Web traffic, the creation of a Wikipedia entry in his name, and -- perhaps most notably -- a job offer from YouTube CEO Chad Hurley via Twitter.
Much like Google Instant, YouTube Instant lets people type in what they're looking for, and the engine guesses what that video is. By design, it plays the video immediately.
Aboukhadijeh, who is from Sacramento, California, said he's been blown away by how quickly his tool went viral and is grateful for all the supportive feedback.