First Vevo Review
Vevo is an online music video website owned by Sony BMG, Universal, EMI and Abu Dhabi Music Company, that is developed and hosted by YouTube, Sony, and Google, with content being initially provided by Universal Music Group. It has begun operations from the midnight of 8th December, 2009. Google and Universal will split ad revenues. Google’s YouTube video service will host Universal content on the satellite website, making this the first time that YouTube hosts content off its main website. Through this partnership, Google and Universal will split ad revenues. It is expected to become the largest music oriented website on the Internet. Vevo is not designed to be exclusive to Universal, but currently only Universal is signed up to offer its content. Universal CEO Doug Morris claims it plans to work with other record companies to host content from elsewhere.
A possible major reason behind the project is the competition that music videos have on YouTube. Warner Music Group apparently removed its content from YouTube in March 2009 for just this reason, but is said to be considering hosting its content on this new service. The concept for the site is described as being a Hulu for music videos and the plan may have arisen from the goal of attracting more high-end advertisers. Currently, it is believed that many advertisers are ambivalent to hosting advertising on YouTube’s site alongside user-generated video. In the future, the site could host more than just music videos, such as editorials, other types of videos, and user-generated content.
Universal registered the domain name vevo.com on 20 November 2008. As of 4 June, 2009 , the website is in operation, and updates are provided to those who enter their email address, or who follow the site’s Twitter page, which is linked from the Vevo homepage. On 18 November 2009, Vevo announced via email that the service would be launched at a party in New York on 8 December.
Availability
First of all, Vevo is not available world wide, it currently is only available in the US. People from other countries get message that Vevo is currently not available in their country. They can leave their email address to be informed when Vevo will be available in their region.
The main page
On the Vevo mainpage you can search for music videos by artist, song or playlist. There are also links to Videos, Artists, Genres, Channels and Playlists as well as a Login and Signup link. Below that you will see the most popular searches on the Vevo site for today (which are clickable links which bring you right to the result page for those searches). Below that is a big slideshow that promotes some of Vevos exclusive videos and content.
In the center of the main page you can find an overview of the Top Videos, Top Playlists and Popular Artists.
At the bottom of the page is your personal playlist. You can load your own videos in it or select a pre-defined playlist (more about this below). The playlist can be minimized.
Sponsors / Ads
The first thing you notice when you watch a video on the Vevo site is that the first Video you watch starts with short advertisement (commercial) before the video starts playing. The page itself is also themed by the sponsor.
The Vevo Video Player
The Video Player is pretty decent. It’s a Flash player (just like YouTube) that plays the videos at 850×480 (850 pixels width and 480 pixels height). The video quality is great. In the player you will find a sidebar with buttons to add the video to your playlist, get a direct video link, get the code to embed the video on your website and to purchase the song you are watching on Itunes or Amazon. Below the video users can comment and there is also a Credits tab. There are also some recommendations listed for other videos and playlists you might like.
The Playlist
This is a great feature of Vevo. With one click you can add and remove videos from your playlist. The Playlist stays available at the bottom of the site while you browse trough the website. It can be minimized and maximized. You can easily skip between tracks in your playlist and you can save the playlist so you can access it again the next time you enter the Vevo site. There are also predefined playlists which you can watch, for example “Rock Favorites”, “Hits”, etc.
The Artists Page
When you click on an Artist’s name you will get a page that shows all available videos from that artist as well as playlists featuring that artist. It also lists the tweets about the artist from twitter.
Vevo Channels
Video channels feature videos by Genre or theme. For example there is a Michal Jackson Legacy channel, a Hit List Channel, A country Channel, A Latino Channel, Old School Hip Hop Channel a channel with Vevo Shows.
Vevo Genres
On the Genres page you can find videos by genre such as Blues, Alternative, Children’s Music, Gospel, Classical, Humor, Country, Easy Listening, Electronic/Dance, Jazz, Holiday, etc.
Vevo Launch Problems
Vevo was just launched, but it seems they didn’t do their capacity planning very well as the site is very unstable. It is currently hard to connect to the Vevo site and when you manage to connect the pages load very slow and most videos won’t play. Some page’s won’t load at all, like the signup page to create an account. Another thing is that Vevo is not available worldwide. Just like Hulu it only works in the US. People from other countries get a message that Vevo is not available in their country.
Vevo announces Agreement with EMI
Vevo announced an agreement with EMI yesterday, which means that Vevo will now feature content from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music. As part of the EMI agreement, music fans will be able to view video content from artists on EMI’s labels including Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol and Virgin, as well as the independent artists and labels represented by EMI Label Services and EMI’s Caroline Distribution unit. Across the Vevo network, users will now enjoy the largest selection of premium music content featuring the broadest array of chart-topping artists found anywhere on the Web. Don’t forget that tonight (December 8 at 11.59pm) Vevo will go live! A few days ago Vevo also published their official blog at blog.vevo.com.
Vevo Launch Date set to December 8 2009
The official launch date for the Vevo site is December 8 2009 at 12 midnight. The site will go open to anyone, so there won’t be any invite only beta test first. We don’t have any more details about the Vevo site yet and how it will look when it launches. It could just be a collection of all licensed music videos that are available on Youtube with a top 10 and stuff like that, combined with exclusive Vevo only content. We expect the site to be integrated a lot within YouTube as all videos will be available on both platforms. As soon as we have any more news regarding the Vevo launch or the Vevo site we will post it.
Vevo Teams up with AT&T
Vevo announced today that they have created a unique branding and marketing partnership with AT&T to support VEVO across a variety of connected platforms. The announcement was made today by Rio Caraeff, president and CEO of VEVO, and Chris Schembri, vice president of media services for AT&T. AT&T’s decision to join Vevo at such an early stage is another milestone on the path to the launch of VEVO.com and VEVO at YouTube in December.
Abu Dhabi Media Company invests in Vevo
Today Vevo announced an investment from the Abu Dhabi Media Company, who now joins Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group as founding shareholders in VEVO. According to Vevo “It’s an honor to bring in such a solid investment partner”. Vevo is confident that ADMC has the vision and experience to help guide them through the many opportunities that lay ahead of Vevo. Vevo’s President & CEO Rio Caraeff said “It’s a credit to the music community, and to the global opportunity that VEVO represents, that we have been able to attract such a solid investment partner with the vision and track record of Abu Dhabi Media Company.”
Vevo is a Giant Step Forward for the Music industry
According to Jimmy Iovine (Interscope’s chariman) Vevo is going to be a giant step forward for the music industry. He mentioned Vevo several times in an interview he did about the future of online music distribution. Interscope has plans to launch an online music distribution platform code-named “Timberland,” which vision can be compared to Vevo “It’s similar in vision to Vevo—which for the first time, will give labels the ability to push out our product without having to go through radio or TV stations. Before, we had to make it, ship it and pray for a hit. Now, with Vevo, we can create the content, sell the ads, and even use the data to market new music to people alongside things they already like. When Vevo launches in December, it will be a giant step forward for the industry. And Interscope is trying to create something similar with our Timberland project.” You can read the full article at paidcontent.org.
Warner music videos back to Youtube
Good news, Warner Music Group and Youtube have come to an agreement about their music videos. This means the Warner music videos will return to Youtube. With Warner on board, YouTube now features artists from all four of the major music labels along with hundreds of independent labels. But this is probably also good news for Vevo, as it’s very likely now that Warner will also be part of Vevo and have all Warner Music Group’s artists videos included in the Vevo website. Unfortunately the specific launch date for Vevo is still unknown, but as soon as there is any news you will read it here first.
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