YouTube announced the winners of annual YouTube Video Awards, recognizing top user-created videos of 2007.

YouTube users voted for nominees of 12 categories Friday including music, sports, comedy, instructional, short film, inspirational, commentary, creative, politics, series, eyewitness and adorable.

An amateur video "Chocolate Rain" by Tay Zonday won the best music video. Zonday turned from an unknown musician into an Internet superstar because of the song.

In the past six months, "Chocolate Rain" has been viewed almost 16 million times.

"It's the new Emmys," Zonday, 25, said of the video-sharing site's awards in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's the next Oscars. The next People's Choice Awards. It'll be interesting to see what happens five years, 10 years (from now)."

Another big win went to a mock-Harry Potter puppet show, "Harry Potter and the Mysterious Ticking Noise," featuring characters from J.K. Rowling's global bestseller. It won for best comedy video.

Best eyewitness video was the epic "Battle at Kruger," which has drawn more than 26 million views to its astonishing footage of a baby water buffalo surviving an attack by lions and a crocodile in the African prairie.

The best short film was Ben Shelton's "My Name is Lisa," a touching video of a girl and her mom who's suffering from Alzheimer's. This category was introduced this year.

(Xinhua/Agencies March 24, 2008)