YouTube may be out pitching star-studded multi-million dollar original web series, but the internet’s largest video sharing site with 150 million or so unique monthly viewers and seven years’ worth of shiny new content uploaded every single day(!) is doing its best to foster, promote, and support the kind of basement born, homegrown, DIY talent and initiatives which, over the past six years, helped the site gain so much traction.
Programs like the YouTube Creator Institute and YouTube NextUp aim to elevate talented online video creators from the level of amateur to professional. The YouTube Partner Program now boats over 20,000 members, all of which share in the advertising revenue earned against their videos. YouTube’s monthly On the Rise campaign gives opportunities for overlooked and undersubscribed channels to land some coveted promotional real estate on the site’s homepage.
And now the Awesome YouTube Partners Report profiles 20 YouTube Parnters “who are changing lives, businesses and in some cases, history.” The document and accompanying channel (FYI, you can’t yet view the fancy pants, customized channel in Cosmic Panda) are meant to inspire (by way of pretty pictures and brief bios) would-be YouTube creators and contributors worldwide and show them what you can accomplish with a camera, a computer, a YouTube account, and good amount of dedication.
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The profiled YouTubers include:
- Orabrush
- The Khan Academy
- Christine Gambito
- OK GO
- It Gets Better Project
- Teresa Richardson
- Governor Chris Christie
- Boyce Avenue
- Show Me the Curry
- Invisible People
- Greg Patillo and Project Trio
- Michelle Phan
- Kevin Wu
- Dude Perfect
- Shay Butler
- Vlog Brothers
- Blendtec
- Josh Sundquist
- Mark Crilley
- Mark Watson
Some of the individuals, businesses, and projects above you’ll definitely recognize (obviously). Others you won’t (which may mean you have to take a 5 or 10-minute break from whatever it is you’re doing because you won’t be able to stop watching Project Trio‘s beatboxing treatment of classic instruments). But all of them are worth checking out (except for Chris Christie’s channel. You can skip that one.).
Download the Awesome YouTube Partner Report to see brief synopses of all the featured partners and catch snippets of their stories. Maybe you’ll be featured in the next installment.