But we're just getting warmed up. Today we're announcing that we are expanding the YouTube Partner Program. Now, anyone living in the United States or Canada can apply to become a partner at www.youtube.com/partners. (We're looking forward to rolling out the program to additional international markets soon.)
We feel it's important to reward our most dedicated community members: those who are regularly uploading original content to YouTube. In evaluating applications, we will focus on the users who have built a significant audience on YouTube (as measured by video views, subscribers, etc.) and who consistently comply with the YouTube Terms of Use.
We previewed this new application process to a select group of users who previously expressed interest in becoming partners -- over 100 of these users have already been added to the program, such as tayzonday, hotforwords, apauledtv, and peteandbrian.
As always, our goal is to provide a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe. We hope that by expanding the YouTube Partner Program, more content creators will reap rewards from their work and be able to produce even more of the original videos that have made YouTube so successful.
The YouTube Team