Update: YouTube has officially announced Vevo.
Original article 03/05: The number one video site in the US and the world’s largest music label are said to be cooking up a deal and a new service. YouTube and Universal Music Group are reportedly in talks to create a premium online music video service.
YouTube has been the go to site for music videos for many people for years. The problem with that is that the music videos there are not legally supposed to be there. This often leads to them getting pulled and makes it frustrating for users, and hard for them to rely on the site for finding the music videos they’re looking for.
In the later part of last year, MTV launched music video site MTVmusic.com. A quick look at Compete data illustrates quite a decline in interest in that since its launch.
There’s no decline to be found with YouTube though, and perhaps that is why a music video site makes good sense there. People are going to continue searching for music videos with YouTube. Why not provide them?
The site would operate separately from YouTube.com, but I would have to imagine it would receive heavy promotion from YouTube itself, driving the users looking for music videos to it. It should be more popular than music video pioneer MTV’s site right out of the bag.
Yinka Adegoke with Reuters reports, “The deal would ideally be broadened out to include videos by artists at the other major music labels — Sony Music, EMI Group and Warner Music Group — in a concept similar to the TV shows available on NBC Universal and News Corp’s Hulu.com.”
Keep in mind, the whole deal is only in talks at this point. So let’s not make too much where there isn’t anything. That said, there is a name that the potential service is being referred to as – Vevo.
