Facebook looking to get in bed with Vevo's music videos

Whether its watching or listening to your favorite tunes, Facebook wants its to be on it site

Facebook has been jumping on a lot of Internet technology trends and proving that once you have a captive audience, they will embrace any tools you put in front of them.

The social networking site is becoming a force to reckon with in the online video market and could become an even larger player now that some sources are claiming that Facebook is in talks with Vevo, according to CNET.

Currently, Vevo is under contract with YouTube but Facebook certainly has the capital and the audience to entice the music video service away from Google's video arm.

Vevo is still a young video service, but is consistently in the top three streaming sites with unique viewers, according to Nielson. This is likely due to the expansive catalog that Vevo has procured, as well as the high demand of music video content online.

While YouTube has been on the scene for seven years, Vevo has only be a live site for around two years but has build a viewership one-third the size of YouTube (43 million to YouTube's 130 million.)

All aspects of online video content has been growing sizably over the last few years -- with YouTube streaming over 3 billion hours in December.

And with more than half of Facebook users accessing the site via their mobile device -- the numbers of people watching video on the same phones is exciting for Facebook -- any video service that can keep eyes on the Facebook app is considered a viable bet. And currently, thirty million people are watching TV or videos on their mobile phone.

The two demographics that saw the greatest increase of data consumption for mobile devices were the 18-24 year old group (jumping from 216 MB in Q3 2010 to 534 MB in Q3 2011) and 25-34 (which went from 264 MB to 578 MB.) This is also a key demographic for Facebook and music video viewing -- sounds like a match made in heaven.

If Facebook can attract Vevo into its pantheon of services, this could catapult Facebook from the lower end of the top five video viewing sites right to the number two spot. For the month November, Nielsen reported that Facebook was receiving 30 million unique video viewers.

Facebook and Vevo were not immediately available for comment on any talks but it has been no secret that Facebook has been working hard to integrate music further and further into its social networking platform.

In recent months, Facebook partnered with Spotify to allow anyone with a Facebook account into the (then) invite-only music streaming service. Over the the past few weeks, Facebook also introduced the "Listen With" function that allows users to not only show what they are listening to, but also allow friends to listen along, with the click of a button.

If Facebook would be able to host or more easily share music videos on its service, this could even position the company to offer music sale services using Facebook credits.

While there are many music streaming services (such as Spotify, Rdio, Pandora and Turntable), many YouTube users go to the service and queue up music videos for listening or can now listen to music videos via Google+.

But the YouTube integration with Google+ has only heated the legal concerns that record labels have on licensing and anti-paracy and Google Music, which was launched in November, is still struggling to gain rights from some companies because of its close relationship with YouTube.

Vevo is comprised of content from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music. 

Facebook and its advertisers would love to gain Vevo as a partner since it would be almost guaranteed that they could use what videos you watch as a better way to target you and sell marketing data back to the record labels.

We may not hear anything about a Facebook-Vevo relationship until the YouTube contract is about to expire but it seems that if Vevo doesn't jump into the Zuckerberg sandbox, it won't deter the company from making or acquiring another option in the very near future.

(Image Source: Free-music-friendster.blogspot.com)