Following its acquisition of Next New Networks back in March, YouTube has been working to encourage original content creators to make its site the home of good, quality, monetisable, original content.
In the US, it recently launched the YouTube Creator Institute and now it has announced a European initiative called NextUp. This programme will see up to 25 partners from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Netherlands receive €20,000 funding each, a place at a four-day ‘YouTube Creator Camp’ in London where they’ll receive one-to-one training, and additional promotion of their channels and videos.
The scheme is open to YouTube users with Partner status and fewer than 50,000 subscribers, with the aim of supporting the service’s up-and-coming talent. After applying at the NextUp Channel page applicants will be whittled down to the final 25 by means of a public vote. The final line-up will be revealed in August.
It’s very much in YouTube’s interests to ensure that as much as possible of the content it distributes is high quality and unique, making the site a go-to destination as the Web and TVs begin to merge into one. Inititives such as NextUp are a step along this path.
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