Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Vevo

Music Video Website Vevo Aiming To Become A TV Channel

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:00:53 +0000

The problem with a lot of the music video channels like MTV, VH1, and BET today is that they don’t actually play music videos that often. They are too busy shows with fist-pumping Italians, the opportunity to fall in love in with Flava Flav, and the Phat Girlz. I believe that Vevo would make up for the lack of music videos on TV. This is why I thought it was great news when Vevo was in talks with cable carriers to become a channel.

Vevo operates independent, but is owned by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and the Abu Dhabhi Media Company. Vevo received 57 million visitors in the U.S. in October and they saw about 827 million videos being streamed that month. This is a 400% increase since they launched in December 2009. Vevo’s videos are streamed through YouTube which is where a bulk of their traffic is coming from. The company is aiming to become more of an established brand so they can earn more advertising revenue when users go directly to their website instead of through YouTube.

News Corp Rumored To Be Handing Off MySpace To Vevo

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:42:43 +0000

News Corporation (NASDAQ:NWSA) is rumored to be in talks to hand off MySpace.com to Vevo.com. Vevo.com is an online music video website that is partially owned by some of the top record companies. The talks are currently in preliminary stages and an agreement may not be reached.

Music videos on Vevo.com are supported by ads. MySpace could provide Vevo with artist and fan pages. Vevo launched in December 2009 through a partnership between Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Abu Dhabi Media Co. Sony Corp. and Universal Music were also investors in MySpace Music. Vevo is the fifth largest video destination website with 45.9 million visitors this past February.

[Bloomberg]

Concert Alert Service SongKick Raises $2 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:57:57 +0000

SongKick is a United Kingdom based company that has raised $1.8 million in their fourth round of funding according to an SEC filing. SongKick is aiming to build an IMDB-like service with a musical history for artists. SongKick also provides alerts, ticket sales, and APIs for other partner websites to display upcoming concert dates on artist pages. Vevo is one of SongKick’s biggest partners. SongKick has raised a total of $7.5 million. [ReadWriteWeb]

VEVO Releases App For iPhone and iPod Touch

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:18:29 +0000

Music video streaming service VEVO.com has released a mobile application for the iPhone and iPod Touch [iTunes Link]. Now you can watch high-quality music videos when you are on the go. Best of all, the application is free (currently available in the U.S. and Canada).

The VEVO application lets you watch, share, and discover music videos. VEVO currently has 20,000 videos across 7,000 artists. You can browse by videos, artists, and playlists. You can also find out what videos are being watched around your location using the GPS on your phone. There is music trivia that shows up while the video is loading too.

VEVO is launching an original series called Ask:Reply! where featured artists answer fan questions submitted to VEVO through Twitter and Facebook.

[VEVO Blog]

Lady Gaga’s Music Videos Receive 25% of Vevo’s Web Traffic

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:06:20 +0000

According to Ted Mico, the EVP of Interscope/Geffen’s digital division, Lady Gaga’s music videos control about 25% of Vevo’s traffic. Vevo is run by Universal Music, Sony Music, and EMI Music. Vevo received about 35 million unique visitors in January 2009, but the service is not yet profitable. Lady Gaga performed at Vevo’s launch party in New York too. The chances of her having a bad romance (pun intended) with Vevo in the future are very slim seeing these numbers. [CNET]

First Impression Of Music Website Vevo

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:24:10 +0000

Now that Vevo has been fully constructed, I have decided to give a quick in depth review of what I think of the service.

Launch:
It seems like the service had a very rough public launching because I have not been able to watch one music video yet. Every one the music videos seem to freeze up at the 78% mark. I tried it on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

Last night when Vevo was supposed to officially launch, there was nothing on the homepage except for the navigation, broke videos, and the search box.

In terms of launching to the public, I give Vevo 1 star out of 5.

Hulu took their launch very seriously. When they launched, the homepage was covered with great featured content and all the videos were working.

Navigation/User Interface:

However I really like how the company set up the navigation, search, and video areas. The navigation is broken down by Videos, Artists, Genres, Channels, and Playlists.

Videos can be sorted by Most Viewed Today/Week/Month/All-Time. The videos can also be sorted by Genre and Time Range. The Genre section shows the most popular videos under Alternative, Blues, Children’s Music, Christian & Gospel, Classical, Comedy/Humor, Country, Easy Listening, Electronic/Dance, Holiday, Jazz, Latino, Other, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rap/Hip-Hop, Reggae, Rock, Soundtrack, Spoken Word, and World. I like the diversity of music video genres.

Channels are hand-picked categories by Vevo staff. Playlists allow the website visitor to play a list of videos consecutively.

Navigation and user interface gets 5 stars out of 5.

Home Page:
Despite the lack of content on the launch night, the Vevo homepage has a Most Popular Today feature. Below that is featured content that scrolls across from various artists. Underneath the featured content is a list of the Top Videos, Top Playlists, and Popular Artists.

There is also a lot of white space surrounding the user interface of the homepage indicating that there is a potential advertising scheme that involves the homepage. Many marketing companies will place a background in that white space for a day and pay top dollar for it.

I give the home page a 4 out of 5 stars. I docked them one point is because it looks very generic. It almost looks like the website based the whole design on Hulu.com.

Overall:
Overall I give Vevo 4 out of 5 stars because I foresee myself using the service very often. On the launch night and today I was very excited to use the service, but it seems very unstable right now. Had this issue been avoided, I would have given Vevo a much more glowing review.

50 Cent Bashing TVs With A Baseball Bat As A Promo For Vevo [Video]

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:43:12 +0000

Vevo is geared to launch tomorrow. As many of you know Vevo is going to be the Hulu of music videos. This means that those of you that are sick of MTV playing more reality shows than music videos these days will finally be able to get your fill of music videos again in one central place. Sony, Universal Music Group, and EMI Music have all agreed to place music video clips on Vevo too. YouTube technology will be used to power the video streaming. In order to promote the new service, Vevo has given 50 Cent a baseball bat to bash up some TVs playing his music video. Just in case you don’t get the metaphor in the video, Vevo wants you to stop watching music videos on TV and come to their website instead.

Vevo Launching On December 8

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:13:55 +0000

Vevo is an upcoming music video website that will be similar to Hulu. Rio Caraeff is the head of Vevo and the company is rumored to have raised $300 million. The company expects to stream about 450 million videos per month. The company will be ran by about 45 people initially.

Vevo is co-owned by Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Abu Dhabi Media. Vevo will be powered by YouTube’s technology and they will be sharing ad revenue with each other. Vevo will be launching officially on December 8.

Rumor: Vevo Valuated At $300 Million After Abu Dhabi Media Investment

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:00:05 +0000

Vevo is an upcoming music video website that is being put together by YouTube, Sony Entertainment, and Universal Music. At the end of August, the company CEO Rio Caraeff was rumored to be flying around the world in order to find potential investors at a $300 valuation. And today a press release has been announced about a funding deal.

Abu Dhabi Media Company bought a stake in Vevo and the funding round is rumored to give the company a $300 valuation. Sony and Universal Music both own stake, but Google does not. Google is on a revenue-sharing agreement with Vevo by providing the YouTube massive distribution platform. The full press release is available after the jump.

VEVO PARTNERS WITH ABU DHABI MEDIA COMPANY

Abu Dhabi Media Company Joins Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment
for World Class Online Premium Music Service

New York, New York, Monday, October 19, 2009…VEVO, the new premium music video and entertainment service powered by YouTube, has received a strategic investment from Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC), one of the world’s fastest growing, multi-platform media organizations. The announcement was made today by Doug Morris, Chairman & CEO of Universal Music Group and Co-Chairman/Founder of VEVO, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, Chief Executive Officer of Sony Music Entertainment & Co-Chairman of VEVO, Rio Caraeff, President & Chief Executive Officer of VEVO, H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazroui, Chairman of ADMC, and Edward Borgerding, Chief Executive Officer of ADMC. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

With this transaction, VEVO is now formed as an independent and fully funded entity with Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) as founding shareholders. Funding from the shareholders will enable VEVO to come to market with an attractive premium music offering for consumers and advertisers alike.

Launching in the United States and Canada later this year with a further international roadmap to be announced, VEVO will be a premium destination and syndication network for the very best in top-notch music video content that will leverage the massive existing traffic of YouTube.

“This global partnership flags Abu Dhabi Media Company’s commitment to establish a leading position in the digital media industry. It is part of an integrated approach to expanding the global digital presence and brand portfolio of Abu Dhabi Media Company, and it illustrates our partnering approach with innovators in digital media services and technologies”, stated H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazroui, Chairman of ADMC, on joining UMG and SME to create VEVO.

“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,” commented Rio Caraeff, President & Chief Executive Officer of VEVO. “Abu Dhabi Media Company brings to the venture important funding support and a team with enormous global media experience and insight, and we look forward to working with them to seize the many opportunities ahead of us.”

“Consumer demand for music video entertainment is growing significantly today and is transforming the digital entertainment market and the music industry by fuelling new media business models. VEVO fits our vision and goals perfectly, as we are expanding our capabilities and continue to build the market for digital entertainment around the world. VEVO will redefine the way premium music video entertainment is consumed, created and shared in a global community of music audiences,” said Edward Borgerding, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Media Company

“We’re now entering a new exciting phase in the digital media industry in the region and we’re determined to be at the forefront of it”, added Ricky Ghai, ADMC’s Executive Director, Digital Group. “With VEVO there’s real opportunity for incredible growth, as both brand advertisers and consumers are looking for new premium video experiences online.”

Vevo Hires David Kohl As Advertising Salesman

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:25:22 +0000

Vevo, the Hulu of music videos has hired David Kohl. Kohl is a former executive at Nokia Corporation where he worked as the Head of Advertising at Sales & Publishing. Kohl will have a challenge ahead of him because Vevo supposedly has convinced the music industry that they could make more money on advertising than YouTube.

Vevo expects to stream about 450 million videos per month. Kohl will be running a team of six people. Kohl plans to expand the advertising sales team too. Vevo now has about 45 employees. Kohl ran the interactive advertising group at Nokia. Kohl also previously worked at MTV, Vivendi, and Comedy Central.