Vevo is the attempt by the music industry to take back control of music videos, which have proved an immensely popular genre of online videos. And it seems to have worked, very quickly, but only because of YouTube’s part in the whole venture.
Vevo
Vevo launched on Dec. 8, 2009 almost a year after first being conceived of. It arrived on time, with a last-minute deal with EMI meaning Warners is the only major record label currently missing from the service.
That didn’t stop the launch faltering or many complaining of a distinct lack of content. However, even with these issues, Vevo has jumped straight to the top of the charts, becoming the number one music service on the Web in December.
Straight To Number One
As reported by TechCrunch, comScore’s figures for the closing month of the noughties show that Vevo managed to immediately overtake MySpace Music to become the most-popular Internet music service.
Top U.S. Music Services On The Web (December 2009)
1. Vevo: 35.4 million
2. MySpace Music: 33.1 million
3. AOL Music: 29.0 million
4. Warner Music: 23.3 million
5. MTV Networks Music: 17.6 million
6. Yahoo! Music: 16.4 million
7. Jango Music Network: 9.6 million
8. ToneFuse Music Network: 8.3 million
9. MSN Music: 6.6 million
10. Rhapsody: 6.5 million
The numbers are obviously only for the U.S., as Vevo isn’t actually available outside of America thanks to the outdated copyright restrictions which seem unable to cope with the fact the Web is a worldwide network.
Thanks To YouTube
The figures are impressive, no doubt about that. However, a closer look reveals to debt Vevo owes to YouTube. 32.6 million of the 35.4 million visitors are attributed to the Google-owned site. That’s 92 percent of Vevo’s users who watched videos on the Vevo channel on YouTube rather than the site itself.
Music videos were already very popular on YouTube, and they still are. The only difference now seems to be Vevo branding and the record labels taking a bigger share of the advertising revenue.
Conclusions
Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff bragged:
“The interest and enthusiasm our users have shown has been both gratifying and inspiring. We are also proud to deliver such strong traffic results straight out of the gate to our content and marketing partners, which solidify their early belief in the VEVO vision. We listen very closely to all of our partners and fans, and have been incorporating their feedback to continue to improve upon the VEVO experience.”
So, I guess Vevo has to be classed as a success, even at this early stage. But there’s clearly still much work to be done, with the most obvious next step being an international roll out. Until then, I and millions of other non-U.S. citizens will be watching from the sidelines.
