After a six-week search, YouTube has chosen 45 content creators to train up to be even more successful video bloggers, a move that will help build out the site’s store of non-cat-video-based entertainment.
The first of these programs is The YouTube Creator Institute, which is designed to help YouTubers mold themselves into more professional media-makers. The video-sharing site asked for non-partners (i.e. those who don’t make money from their content) to vie for a position at the Institute. Ten were selected for two programs, one at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and one at Columbia College, Chicago.
Artist Lauren Nash was one of those winners. “I just wanted to make a channel that blogs about my art ,” she says of the YouTube presence she launched in 2008.
“People say my videos really inspire them, that they inspire them to take a step into art,” she says. She hopes that her experience at the Institute will help her hone those skills, allowing her to better engage with her audience.
“We want to enable these folks to make a living and have their content be more than a parttime job,” says Tom Sly, head of strategic partner development & programs. “We want to have more folks making six figures off of YouTube and to bring more and better content onto the platform to satisfy users.”
The second program, YouTube NextUp, was created as a result of YouTube’s recent acquisition of Next New Networks, a web video production company. The 25 partners who enter that program will each get $35,000 to build their channels, and one-and-one training at a YouTube Creator Camp in New York.
Franchesca Ramsey, who sta rted her channel in 2007,...
