Vevo is a music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 website. It is a joint venture among Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....

, Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...

, and Abu Dhabi Media with EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 licensing its content to the group without taking an ownership stake. The service was launched officially on December 8, 2009. The videos on VEVO are syndicated across the web, with Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 and VEVO sharing the advertising revenue.

VEVO offers music videos from three of the 'big four' major record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI. Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...

 was initially reported to be considering hosting its content on VEVO, but subsequently formed a rival alliance with MTV Networks

MTV Networks

MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...

. There are more than 45,000 videos available on VEVO.

Development

The concept for VEVO was described as being a Hulu

Hulu

Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...

 for music videos, with the goal being to attract more high-end advertisers. 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

McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...

. The site's other revenue sources include a merchandise store and referral links to purchase viewed songs on Amazon MP3

Amazon MP3

Amazon MP3 is an online music store owned and operated by Amazon.com. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights management from the four major music labels , as well as many independents...

 and iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

. Universal acquired the domain name vevo.com on 20 November 2008. Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....

 reached a deal to add its content to the site in June 2009. The site went live on December 8, 2009, and that same month became the number one most visited music site in the US, overtaking MySpace Music.

In August 2010, VEVO introduced a free application for the Apple iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

 that allows users to stream videos in the VEVO catalog and create playlists. Extending into connected devices, VEVO launched a channel on Google TV

Google TV

Google TV is a Smart TV platform from Google. It was announced on May 20, 2010, at Google’s Google I/O event and was co-developed by Google, Intel, Sony and Logitech...

 and an application on Boxee

BOXEE

Boxee is a cross-platform freeware HTPC software application with a 10-foot user interface and social networking features designed for the living-room TV...

. A Vevo app for Android phones was released in January 2011. The company says that launching on other mobile platforms and connected devices is imminent.

Availability

The vevo.com website and iPhone app are currently available only in the US, UK, Canada and the Republic of Ireland. The website was scheduled to go worldwide in 2010, but it was still not available outside these countries. Vevo's official blog cited licensing issues for the delay in the worldwide rollout. Some 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." The VEVO service in the UK and the Republic of Ireland was launched on April 26, 2011.

External links