Mr Phan also signed agreements on computer technology with Bill Gates and toured Harvard.

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"You're already predicting 68 teams, " said Brian Phan, a financial analyst who oversees The Bracket Project Blog.

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At a sleepover last month, they followed a Michelle Phan beauty tutorial on YouTube, showing how to curl hair with paper bags.

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Phan relies as much as he can on a smartphone (he uses the Samsung Galaxy S) to avoid bringing along a laptop on personal trips.

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Huang Phan of the BBC's Vietnamese Service describes its impact.

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America has two reasons for cosying up to Mr Phan.

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Phan, along with my friend and commenter Marq Hwang, suggested ditching expensive and bulky noise-cancelling headphones in favor of smaller earphones that block noise by sealing off the ear canal.

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But Wednesday's event focused largely on those who had succeeded on YouTube before the channel-funding strategy was in place, such as Michelle Phan, a YouTuber who has been giving viewers makeup tips since 2006.

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Thuan Phan, who spends about half the year as a sales engineer, points out that the advantage in space and cost goes to small earphones that block noise by sealing off the ear canal.

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"I don't think there is any other composer who set the English language better to music, " says tenor Nicholas Phan, who has recorded two albums of Britten, and will perform in the "War Requiem" next November with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony.

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