UPDATE: The morning after and the site is live. But slow and buggy….
Mashable says so, “YouTube and Universal have just flipped the switch and VEVO is now live.” But all I’m getting is the blog with a promise of “Launching Tonight! In the meantime, enjoy reading our blog.” So which is it? Or what is it? NewTeeVee:
Taking a page out of Hulu CEO Jason Kilar’s playbook, Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff told the crowd at the company’s launch event in Manhattan that the new site would be all about the user experience. “If we focus on the fan, if we focus on the experience, the rest will fall in line,” Caraeff said. But then taking a page out the music industry’s playbook, he welcomed Mariah Carey, Adam Lambert and Lady Gaga to the stage. Let’s just say record labels don’t do humble very well.
Vevo will have a huge amount of video content at launch, as its owners control more than 80 percent of all music videos created. YouTube provides backend management for the videos and will also drive viewers to the new destination site.
The site will get rid of duplicate and low-quality uploads that currently plague YouTube, redirecting to the official highest-quality recording studio version on Vevo. High-definition videos are coming early next year, and synchronized lyrics are posted for as many videos as possible. Vevo videos are embeddable, though there doesn’t seem to be anyway for users to participate or mash them up beyond leaving a comment.
The company has future plans to make its videos available not just online, but on mobile and connected devices. “It’s not about building a destination site, it’s about building an experience,” Caraeff said. “It’s about putting out the best experience wherever people are.”
You can get some flavor of what Vevo will be now on YouTube. The video quality is really very impressive. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt credits Bono with suggesting the meeting that got VEVO going. And Bono said at tonight’s bash, “Friends, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a great old cash cow that was the music business… But friends, we’re also here to celebrate new shoots, new life, and the birth of a new model for our industry.”