Over the past year, YouTube has been busy with outreach to its community of independent creators through its YouTube Next program. The idea is to identify the next big YouTube stars and to provide them with the resources they need to improve the quality of their content, as well as help build their audiences.
So far, the YouTube Next Creator program has focused on a couple of different verticals. Most recently it sought to help out vloggers, and before that worked to find talented producers of cooking and fitness videos. With that in mind, the next vertical it’s focusing on is comedy.
In a post on the YouTube blog issued this morning, Austin Lau, who works for YouTube’s Creator Programs, issued a call for creators who span all genres of comedy to apply to be a part of the YouTube Next Comic program.
It’s looking to have 16 creators participate in the program, which will provide educational workshops through Google Hangouts, $5,000 worth of video equipment, and $10,000 worth of free promotion throughout the YouTube site. They’ll also get mentorship from other comedic talents, including the guys from College Humor.
In addition to his request for applications, Lau also gave an update on the success of the YouTube Next Creator program. So far, the program has had 147 creators participate from 13 countries around the globe. Those creators have made more than 9,000 videos, which have received 327 million views since being a part of the program.
Applications to participate in YouTube Next Comic are open now, with the final deadline to apply set for July 13. It plans to announce the 16 Next Comic participants on July 30.
via TechCrunchTechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/29/youtube-next-comic/
