Next Up In NextUp: YouTube Giving Money To How-To Videos

A recent post on the YouTube Creator Blog has announced the launch of another NextUp competition, continuing a long line of related contests. This time around, the theme is How-To videos.

If you’re a regular Tubefilter reader, you’re probably thinking ‘wait a minute, didn’t YouTube JUST announced a NextUp competition, like, last week?’ First off, thanks for taking the time to check us out, hypothetical reader! Second off, yes, YouTube did announce a NextUp project five days ago, with the theme of collaboration. Since that contest will eventually award at least sixty creators, I didn’t think we’d see such a quick turnaround. However, it’s important to remember that NextUp (collaborators) and “Next Creator” (this one) are two separate programs, will the latter extending the offer beyond the US. Still, it’s clear Google has a lot of money they want to sink into innovative channels.

The how-to category is a worthwhile theme, as the genre could use an injection of professional content. Too many how-to searches on YouTube are dominated by Expert Village, which has been accused of not actually featuring ‘experts’ on its channel. Nonetheless, its 2.6 billion views have made it one of the most successful channels on YouTube, and it’s time for it to get some worthwhile competition.

Such a theme is also similar to the recent Next EDU Guru competition, showing YouTube’s investment in didactic channels. Given the huge number of successful channels in YouTube’s most successful categories, kudos to Google for hoping to dredge up talent in areas that are less appreciated but more beneficial to society as a whole.

As with other YouTube Next competitions, the winners will receive a plethora of prizes, including $4,000 in production equipment, workshops with top producers, and additional promotion from YouTube. If you’ve got a bit of personality and a knowledge of cooking steaks or sinking jumpers, now’s your chance to earn a sizable windfall. If it worked for Tim Ferriss, it can work for you. You can submit your channel right here, so get on with it!