YouTube Next’s New Targets: Chefs and Jocks

The goal of YouTube’s NextUp initiative is to foster and train fledgling online video talent who have the skills, but not necessarily the means or the knowhow to elevate their status from amateur creator to paid professional.

Earlier this year the team at YouTube Next bestowed the tittle of NextUp Winner upon 25 burgeoning new media content creators. The title was accompanied by a check for $35,000 and entry into an exclusive four-day YouTube Creator Boot Camp in New York city where YouTube insiders and top performers dropped production, internet, and marketing knowledge onto the online video sharing site’s stars of tomorrow.

The content of those stars of tomorrow ran the gamut of online video genres, from guy-with-a-guitar music to classic Korean recipes to super sweet animation and back again to girl-with-a-microphone music. But for the just announced second round of YouTube Next Up, the powers that be at YouTube Next are looking to flesh out more specific content verticals.

YouTube Next Chef and YouTube Next Trainer are two similar initiatives with the intent to train and coach online video’s next crop of catchphrase wieldin’ celebrity cooks and super inspiring online video workout partners. 16 participants for each program will be selected amongst all the applicants, and be afforded the opportunity to partake in a “three month virtual class held on Google+ Hangouts” (which is all the rage these days) as well receive “an equipment kit worth more than $5,000, mentoring from industry leaders, filming and editing lessons and more than $10,000 worth of promotion on YouTube.”

Interested individuals click on those links above to apply to the programs by October 25. And we’ll see you back here on November 9 when YouTube announces its second class of beneficiaries of the NextUp program.