IF YOUR search for a music video on YouTube keeps returning those pesky “removed for copyright reasons” messages, it’s likely because of the ongoing squabble between the major labels and YouTube over revenues. But all that could soon be forgotten with the imminent launch of the super-duper dedicated music site Vevo (www.vevo.com).
It all makes sense: many people now hear new music for the first time on YouTube, and the site’s worldwide audience is unrivalled. But advertisers have always had a problem with it: the site is just too large, and for every expensively produced video, there’s any number of badly home-made (or “user-generated” as we’re supposed to call them) videos of dogs falling off skateboards etc.
Vevo will be a premium version of YouTube (and will have its own YouTube channel as well as its own stand-alone site) and will contain music videos, interviews and other footage from major-label artists. Once the site is up and running (this September is the estimate)
it will offer a download service
(to buy the music you’ve just watched) as well as merchandise sales and concert tickets. In a nutshell, Vevo will be a one-stop music shop – which will keep the advertisers happy.
Vevo is the brainchild of Universal Music Group, but it was never going to be just about one label’s content. Last week, Sony said it was signing up to the new site, bringing such high-profile artists as AC/DC, Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen into the fold alongside such Universal heavyweights as Lady Gaga, Kings of Leon and Rihanna, with EMI and Warners expected to come on board sometime soon. For Sony, the big draw is “the attractive, clean and intuitive environment that will appeal to fans and advertisers alike”.
The big pull of Vevo (although it remains to be seen whether the word “premium” means you have to pay for it) will be the high production values of the videos screened, allied to the not inconsiderable fact that the site won’t host “user-generated” content – operators, not users, will determine what goes up.
During the research for the site, potential advertisers all came back with the same message: they didn’t want the YouTube situation where if you click on, say, a Kings of Leon song, after the first two minutes, it turns into a video of a guy setting his chip pan on fire and laughing hysterically.
The “user-generated soundtrack” videos on YouTube are also a big problem for them.
These are the ones where you see someone doing something wacky and in the background, a U2 or Coldplay song is playing. At present, Google (YouTube’s owners) uses “audio fingerprinting technology” to track these user-generated videos and then pays a fee to the major label which owns the recording.
The Wall Street Journalhas already praised Vevo's "controlled setting", and the site does seem to be a realistic attempt by the major labels to get to grips with online music sales and promotions (millions have been wasted over the years in this pursuit).
The music industry was the first sector to really suffer from the new technologies – and the first to have to cope with file-sharing (the film and books industries are next on the list). In this sense, the safe, clean and advertiser-friendly one-stop shop that will be Vevo is a real and concerted attempt to work with changing consumer habits.
What it all means for YouTube itself is a moot point. A large percentage of its audience visits the site just for the music videos. If they’re stripped away, will YouTube’s figures drop? Or will the site make money from hosting the Vevo channel? And if Vevo works, will other popular, and free-to-use, social networking sites create their own two-tier systems. Wade through all the crap for free but pay to get the really good stuff. Let the monetising begin.
