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Universal, YouTube Collaboration To Be Run By Someone Who Sees The Bigger Picture
from the a-good-first-step dept
At the beginning of March, I questioned the wisdom of Universal Music and YouTube teaming up to create a separate site just for Universal Music, called Vevo. While I thought it could be interesting, it really depended on the execution, and the early talk about it seemed to miss the point. That is, it said that YouTube would supply the "technology" and Universal would supply the music. Of course, what that's missing is that much of the value in YouTube isn't in the technology (which many others have replicated), but in the community. So, if Vevo was to get anywhere, it would need to recognize that fact, rather than simply looking at YouTube as a tech vendor.
At the end of March, in a totally separate post, I wrote about my surprise at seeing my fellow keynote presenter at the Leadership Music Digital Summit, Rio Caraeff of Universal Music, present a reasonable vision for where the music industry needed to be: getting away from selling "music" and in creating better, more valuable experiences that simply can't be replicated by file sharing. This was in stark contrast to what Universal Music's own CEO had been saying for years. While Caraeff admitted that it was still a struggle to get this message through to everyone at Universal, he believed in it strongly.
That's why it's noteworthy that Caraeff has now been put in charge of the Vevo project. I'm still not convinced it's anything more than a boondoggle that will go nowhere quickly, but putting Caraeff in charge of it immediately makes it a much more interesting project to follow. The real question is what he does with it, and whether the bosses back at Universal Music actually give him enough free reign to let him turn the site into what it needs to be. I wish I could be optimistic, but given the major record labels' track record in dealing with such things, I still think the chances are pretty slim.
At the end of March, in a totally separate post, I wrote about my surprise at seeing my fellow keynote presenter at the Leadership Music Digital Summit, Rio Caraeff of Universal Music, present a reasonable vision for where the music industry needed to be: getting away from selling "music" and in creating better, more valuable experiences that simply can't be replicated by file sharing. This was in stark contrast to what Universal Music's own CEO had been saying for years. While Caraeff admitted that it was still a struggle to get this message through to everyone at Universal, he believed in it strongly.
That's why it's noteworthy that Caraeff has now been put in charge of the Vevo project. I'm still not convinced it's anything more than a boondoggle that will go nowhere quickly, but putting Caraeff in charge of it immediately makes it a much more interesting project to follow. The real question is what he does with it, and whether the bosses back at Universal Music actually give him enough free reign to let him turn the site into what it needs to be. I wish I could be optimistic, but given the major record labels' track record in dealing with such things, I still think the chances are pretty slim.
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somewhat actually agreeing with mike
As we've seen with the AP syndication vs aggregators issue, the problem is that having even lead-ins from other sites destroys content creators' business model because people don't stick around in the incredibly small walled garden. Much of the content industry has survived off of forced bundling, and the web (and especially aggregators) breaks that. I would say that universal music should be accessible from youtube searches, which would then take you to the vevo domain, but what value is vevo adding? Merely adding the content isn't enough because there are 24839429 other music videos right in line even if every universal artist was taken off youtube. That's WHY Warner and AP bitch and complain about Google running content. They realize that Google adds a ton of value, and that's why they're too afraid of taking their content off completely.
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Best O'Luck
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-wmgs-bronfman-jr-no-more-online-investments/
who states quite clearly that Vevo should charge admission.
Also, in reading interviews with Rio, he seems to be falling into the trap of over-valuing the content, in this case videos, which being digital can be infinitely distributed.
To be fair, he also has a dozen points and understandings that seem spot on. Hope he isn't turned into sausage by his bosses.
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Re: Best O'Luck
simply put, the distribution method adds a ton of value that the label is not delivering. so this mentality of going from one distribution site to another (as you point out in the PC article re: Warner music) is just not focused. it's much more important to have a seamless system, and capitalize on that.
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Punishment
That was his punishment.
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Youtube is replaying AOL
Youtube's got far bigger issues to worry about. @youtube squarely get back on both feet first.
This is how I suggest you do that: http://journik.posterous.com/what-youtube-should-do-to-choke-off-hulu
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