Earlier this month Google announced Vevo, a music video partnership with some of the biggest labels in the music industry. Earlier this month I also happened to walk by the Vevo launch party only to be left with a huge sense of uneasiness.
Vevo lacks passion.
Vevo was not a Google engineer’s midnight stroke of genius developed during his or her 20 percent time. Instead, it was the product of business development deals signed during board room pitches to the music “industry” elite. Bizdev deals are a great way to help you get to your final destination, but they rarely inspire one to leave in the first place.
Vevo has no purpose.
We are a society of movements; the renaissance, urbanization, the SUV, and hairbands were all examples of this. When a movement becomes too large it creates a scarcity of variety and becomes susceptible to counterculture.
Unfortunately for Vevo, there is no scarcity of official music videos or of industry marketing efforts. New singles are announced on billboards, easily found online, integrated into advertisements, played in taxicabs and played out on TV. Vevo is simply another drop in a large enough movement leaving the role of “the next big thing” up for grabs.
Vevo provides music in isolation.
The greatest quality of the internet is that it allows you to follow the breadcrumbs both to and from a popular destination. Ironically, YouTube is the perfect embodiment of this as it lets you follow commodities like this to gems like this:
The internet hates isolation and the comments, covers, remixes, and spoofs all come together to create a dynamic experience that most users are silently begging for.
Vevo is a parasite.
Vevo is no different than YouTube, meaning that its success will be largely dependent on YouTube’s demise.
Google could do more.
Google could benefit the music industry more if they were to simply remove the main method of finding torrents through their search engine. (Mashable wrote something similar earlier this year) According to Google’s own AdWord Keyword Tool, the word torrent is searched for over 100 MILLION TIMES PER MONTH. I’m going to guess that greeting these users with an error page and missing out on a 100 million opportunities to serve adwords would be very bad for business.
Furthermore, it is against Google’s Terms of Service to link to any site that contains infringed copyright material; however, Google must be made aware of such sites by its users through a 9 step form. For all the amazing technology that Google has delivered I’m amazed that they have not developed an automated filter for sites that infringe upon copyright law.
Finally, Vevo will not help new musicians.
I met a singer-songwriter today who started asking me questions about creating awareness and using the web as a means of distribution and marketing for his work. He knew the internet held the answer but didn’t know how to find it. Although I’m also not sure where that answer is, I know that it is not Vevo.
As my friend discussed his struggles, my thoughts went back to the feelings I had when walking by the Vevo launch party. In attendance were some of today’s richest artists and execs surrounded by photographers, expensive food, and strong cocktails as they discussed the devastating state of their industry. I now realize that the uneasiness in my stomach came from disappointment in knowing that there are people and companies out there that have the brains and the resources to answer every singer songwriter’s worries but instead they created Vevo.
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