COMMENTARY: VEVO Is Alive

By Steven Gottlieb on December 9, 2009 @ 11:48am PST | Comments (0)

Before I formally direct you all to check out VEVO.com, let me ask a question.

Vevo Anyone remember PluggedIn.com? Big online music video initiative pushed by UMG with content from all the major labels except WMG? High quality videos. Big investors, big money. Anyone? It was launched in 2008. I even wrote about it here.

Don't bother googling too much: PluggedIn.com is, alas, now an entertainment portal owned and operated by James Dobson's Christianist group Focus On The Family that seeks to warn parents about objectionable content (this just in: Adam Lambert is gay).

Point being: The new UMG online initiaive VEVO.com reminds me a whole lot of PluggedIn.com. VEVO.com is launching with content from all labels except WMG. It also boasts high quality versions of all videos. It's the differences, however, that may help VEVO.com avoid being PluggedIn 2.0.

VEVO has a much bigger partner  — PluggedIn.com relied on Move Technology —  with Google/YouTube officially on-board as a business partner, providing the infrastructure and split the advertising revenue generated by the content.

There's also a lot more A-List names involved: VEVO's launch party boasted appearances by Mariah Carey, Adam Lambert, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Bono, who called it "the the birth of a new model for our industry."

That starpower spills over to VEVO.com as well, with the site launching today with exclusive premiere videos from Mariah, 50 Cent, Timbaland featuring Drake and other top-line artists. Compelling exclusive content with big artists should guarantee eyeballs, especially if VEVO and all their partners (YouTube, UMG, etc) can flex their legal might to keep it from spilling over to other sites.

In terms of technology and design, things seem pretty clean, if not a bit no-frills. The biggest web 2.0 feature other than comments is the ability to construct playlists, something that could come in handy for those who have long been envisioning a veritable video jukebox that could be programmed for parties or whatnot. Cool.

Money? Video advertising is being bandied about as the big growth market online. Music Videos and music-related content are about as good and popular as you get with online content (except for porn and skateboarding dog, of course). VEVO has already lined up many primo advertising accounts at what sound like premium rates.

Is all that enough to get people to visit the site and watch videos there as opposed to all the other sites our there, not to mention the other start-ups that have all promised to reinvent the web? And will that influx of ad money be enough to make the music business to move away from the traditional sales model?

Maybe. For me, it's just nice to see music videos heralded as a potential bright spot in the music landscape and not as an overlooked bastard child.

So, with all that in mind, go check out VEVO.com.

PS: VEVO seems to be dealing with the usual launch-day bugs and traffic overload. Be patient. Otherwise, I would scour the site so I could see if I could embed The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" or something equally snarky.

PPS: This CNET article on VEVO is a good one. So is this one from The National, even if comes from an outlet owned by the same Abu Dhabi Media company that's a partner in VEVO.

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Comments

hipgnosist's picture
By hipgnosist
Don't know. Personally I find little of interest on the site As it stands & true to label form everything is overly categorized. Misleadingly so. The one item of note I found in my brief search, Elastica's - "Connection" was an alternate version. While this is interesting in & of it's self, can't help but feel this in indicative of the major's on going folly & failure to understand the true nature of the market the want so badly to control. How hard is it to simply put THE clip everyone liked up? I mean are people really looking for "classical" music video? Part of what made youtube the revolution it is, is the end user capacity for the obscure & arcane. Also, it's more than JUST music video. Besides, COME ON!!! These guys have deep, deep wells of archival material so why the hot 100 trip. Don't the powers that be understand that it is this kind of crass for cash, that has caused them to lose the game so far? It's boring & only appeals to the most cosmetic of music fans. These are not the people who actually support an industry, these are people who dispose of music like the do old hamburger wrappers. Anyway, the site is elegant enough but I think they'll have to do much better than this too spur interest in music video as a stand alone facet. Does anyone really care what Bono has to say?
Stephen Scott's picture
By Stephen Scott
FAIL! As usual... USA only. Until the music industry can sort their squabbles out and just play a flipping video, many could care less. Thing that gets me is, its a PROMO to encourage sales of a song... Why cant they realise this is the INTERNET (note to music industry execs, its a series of 'tubes' and it its available outside of the centre of the Universe) Clueless.
Steven Gottlieb's picture
By Steven Gottlieb
Heres all you need to know about Bono. He went to the launchparty where he got to speak and, probably most importantly, got to hobnob with the CEO of Google and other very powerful people. I dont blame him. Id have gone too. But, VEVO didnt launch with any exclusive U2 content, did it? VEVO could be one killer app (or more correctly, one killer exclusive video) away from making a name for itself. Lady Gaga Bad Romance could have been that video. Being that it just came out a few weeks ago, I think its odd, possibly telling, that they didnt hold it for the VEVO launch. As of right now Id say VEVO is a nicely designed music video library site. Theres a lot of them out there. A lot. Lets see what they do from here on out with it. They have the content and the connections to do cool, compelling stuff. PS: Theres also not a single Krokus video on VEVO. Outrageous.
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