Vevo

Vevo (stylized as VEVO) is a music video website. It is a joint venture among Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Abu Dhabi Media[3] with EMI licensing its content to the group without taking an ownership stake.[4] The service was launched officially on December 8, 2009.[5] The videos on Vevo are syndicated across the web,[6] with Google and Vevo sharing the advertising revenue.[7]
Vevo offers music videos from three of the 'big four' major record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI.[8] Warner Music Group was initially reported to be considering hosting its content on Vevo,[9] but subsequently formed a rival alliance with MTV Networks.[10] There are more than 45,000 videos available on Vevo.

Development

The concept for Vevo was described as being a Hulu for music videos,[7] with the goal being to attract more high-end advertisers.[12] To this end Vevo censors the content of some of its videos for language, to make them more acceptable to advertising partners such as McDonald's.[13] The site's other revenue sources include a merchandise store[14] and referral links to purchase viewed songs on Amazon MP3 and iTunes.[15] Universal acquired the domain name vevo.com on 20 November 2008. Sony Music Entertainment reached a deal to add its content to the site in June 2009.[16] The site went live on December 8, 2009, and that same month became the number one most visited music site in the US,[17] overtaking MySpace Music.[18]
In August 2010, Vevo introduced a free application for the Apple iPhone that allows users to stream videos in the Vevo catalog and create playlists.[19] Extending into connected devices, Vevo launched a channel on Google TV and an application on Boxee. A Vevo app for Android phones was released in January 2011.[20] The company says that launching on other mobile platforms and connected devices is imminent.[21]
Availability

The vevo.com website and iPhone app are currently available only in the U.S., UK, Canada and the Republic of Ireland.[19] The website was scheduled to go worldwide in 2010,[22] but as of November 2011 it was still not available outside these countries.[23] Vevo's official blog cited licensing issues for the delay in the worldwide rollout.[24][a] Most of Vevo's videos on YouTube are viewable by users in other countries, while others will produce the message "This video contains content from Vevo, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."[25] The Vevo service in the UK and the Republic of Ireland was launched on April 26, 2011.[26]
Policy on videos with explicit content

Versions of videos on Vevo with explicit content such as swear words may be edited. A company spokesperson stated: "Our censorship goal for launch was to keep everything clean for broadcast, 'the MTV version.'"[27] This allows Vevo to make their network more friendly to advertising partners such as McDonalds. [27] Vevo has stated that it does not have specific policies or a list of words that are forbidden. Some videos are provided with an explicit version in addition to the censored version. There is no formal rating system in place, aside from classifying videos as explicit or non-explicit, but discussions are taking place to create a rating system that allows users and advertisers to choose the level of profanity they are willing to accept.[27]
Notes

a. ^ The Vevo "coming soon" page currently states: "Sorry! The page you are looking for is not available in your region. VEVO is working hard to make sure all of our videos are available worldwide. In the meantime, watch and enjoy your favorite videos through VEVO on YouTube.."
References

^ Vevo official Twitter page
^ "Vevo.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012-02-02.
^ Music Industry Companies Opening Video Site - New York Times, 7 December 2009
^ EMI Licenses Content to Vevo in 11th-Hour Deal - Wired, 7 December 2009
^ "Queen Rania calls on music world to support 1GOAL education campaign". 2009-12-10. Retrieved 2010-01-06.
^ Carr, Austin. Vevo CEO on MTV, Jersey Shore, Google TV, Music Videos. Fast Company.com, October 27, 2010.
^ a b Sandoval, Greg (2009-03-04). "Universal, YouTube near deal on music video site". CNET News. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
^ "Vevo announces agreement with EMI Music". 2009-12-07.
^ Sandoval, Greg (2009-10-21). "Vevo negotiating with EMI and Warner Music". CNET. Retrieved 2010-07-27.
^ MTV Overtakes Vevo as Top Online Music Destination - Wall Street Journal, 8 September 2010
^ "Full list of videos available on Vevo".
^ Rosoff, Matt. "Vevo CEO confirms it's all about business". CNET. Retrieved 2009-12-17.
^ Vevo Censors Music Videos for Brands - Advertising Age, 22 Jan 2010
^ Release Notes: Facebook Like Button, Vevo Store and more - Vevo.com, 8.4.10
^ Notes from the Factory Floor - Vevo.com, 5.20.10
^ Sandoval, Greg (2009-06-04). "Sony joins YouTube and Universal on Vevo video site". CNET. Retrieved 2010-01-12.
^ Vevo Launches as #1 Music Network in the US Vevo.com, 13 Jan 2010
^ YouTube Helps Vevo Overtake MySpace Music In The U.S. - Techcrunch, 13 Jan 2010
^ a b Bruno, Antony (2010-08-18). "Vevo's iPhone Hits The App Store". Billboard. Retrieved 2010-09-23.
^ Ehrlich, Brenna (January 12, 2011). "Vevo Comes to Android". Mashable. Archived from the original on January 16, 2011. Retrieved January 16, 2011.
^ Rio Caraeff. The Music Evolution Revolution Comes to Google TV. Vevo Blog, October 4, 2010.
^ Andrews, Robert (2009-12-09). "Vevo Not Global Until 2010, Strains On First Day". paidContent:UK. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
^ YouTube Globalization Continues with Four New Languages (Exclusive) - Wired, 25 Aug 2010. "...videos on Vevo.com, a partnership between the major labels and YouTube, only appear in the U.S. and Canada. (Some of those videos appear in those countries on YouTube, according to Vevo; the company promised in January to launch Vevo in more countries before the end of 2010 but has yet to do so.)"
^ "Vevo Coming To More Countries As Soon As Possible". 2010-01-08. Retrieved 2010-05-28.
^ List of Vevo artist channels on YouTube
^ Salmon, Chris (2011-04-27). "Click to download: YouTube and Vevo battle it out". The Guardian. Retrieved 2011-04-27.
^ a b c Learmonth, Michael (2010-1-22). "Google Supports Censorship On Vevo So It Can Sell More Ads". Business Insider. Retrieved 2012-01-30.

History

SoundCloud was originally started in Stockholm, Sweden, but was established in Berlin, Germany in August, 2007 by sound designer Alex Ljung and artist Eric Wahlforss. It had the intention of allowing musicians to share recordings with each other, but later transformed into a full publishing tool which also allowed musicians to distribute their music tracks.[3]
A few months after it began operating, SoundCloud began to challenge the dominance of MySpace as a platform for musicians to distribute their music by allowing recording artists to interact more nimbly with their fans.[3]
In a 2009 interview with Wired, co-founder Alex Ljung said:
“We both came from backgrounds connected to music, and it was just really, really annoying for us to collaborate with people on music — I mean simple collaboration, just sending tracks to other people in a private setting, getting some feedback from them, and having a conversation about that piece of music. In the same way that we’d be using Flickr for our photos, and Vimeo for our videos, we didn’t have that kind of platform for our music.”[3]
In April 2009, SoundCloud received €2.5 million Series A funding from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.[2] By May 2010, SoundCloud announced it had one million subscribers.[2] In January 2011, it was confirmed that SoundCloud had raised a $10 million Series B funding round from Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures. On June 15, 2011, SoundCloud announced they had 5 million registered users, and investments from Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary's A-Grade Fund. On January 23, 2012, SoundCloud announced on their blog that they had 10 million registered users. A story wheel was created for the occasion, which can be found on the SoundCloud blog.[4]
[edit]Features

A key feature of SoundCloud is that it lets artists upload their music with a distinctive URL. This contrasts with MySpace, which hosts music only on the MySpace site. By allowing sound files to be embedded anywhere, SoundCloud can be combined with Twitter and Facebook to let members reach their audience better.[3]
SoundCloud distributes music using widgets and apps.[2] Users can place the widget on their own websites or blogs and then SoundCloud will automatically Tweet every track uploaded.[3] SoundCloud has an API that allows other applications or smartphones to upload or download music and sound files.[3] Apps are available for the iPhone, iPad, and Android platforms and a Symbian app is also thought to be on the way.[5]
This API has been integrated into several applications, most notably the Pro version of the PreSonus Studio One DAW.[6] Several other web services integrate with the API, including Songkick and FourSquare.[7]
SoundCloud depicts audio tracks graphically as waveforms and allows users to comment on specific parts of the track.
[edit]Paid subscription features

SoundCloud offers additional features to users with paid subscriptions. Such users are given more hosting space and may distribute their tracks or recordings to more groups and users, create sets of recordings, and more thoroughly track the statistics for each of their tracks. Additional statistic data are unlocked depending on which subscription the user has chosen, including the number of listens per track per user and the originating country of individual listens.
[edit]Recognition

SoundCloud won the Schroders Innovation Award at the 2011 European Tech Tour Awards Dinner. [8]

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