The second largest video property after YouTube, Vevo, has launched a redesign and now offers new functionality to increase the site stickiness. The new Vevo offers a Facebook playlist, iTunes syncing and continuous play to better recommend and offer music all the time for its viewers.
At the start of this year, Vevo proved it could attract 51.5 million unique viewers, according to comScore and has proved that the music video content is in very high demand -- despite the continued music shunning that television channels have enacted.
VEVO is a joint venture between Sony Music, Universal Music, and Abu Dhabi Media, to create a Hulu for music videos. Vevo has also signed licensing agreements so that YouTube can republish the Vevo content and had been, reportedly, in talks with Facebook to create a similar licensing agreement.
Thos talks likely revolved around the fact that, despite YouTube being on the scene for seven years, and Vevo only being a live site for around two years, Vevo has build a viewership one-third the size of YouTube (51+ 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 three billion hours in December.
And it appears that the talks with Facebook went well, since the new Vevo design went live Friday and when users login using Facebook, the site scans your newsfeed and daily Facebook data to create a personalized playlist.
So for those of you that have likes an artist or shared a music video in the past on your wall, Vevo will take that history to build a personal playlist to keep you grooving while you Facebook stalk exes.
There is also a Vevo iTunes Match option (you don't have to opt-in) that will also scan your iTunes library to create a playlist of music videos that matches your most listened-to artists.
All of these features plus the talk to utilize a music intelligence platform, The Echo Nest, to discover music videos personalized to their personal preference equals lots of on-site time (and advertisers love seeing those numbers).
And with a catalog of more than 45,000 videos, people could keep discovering music video (or just listening to the songs) for hours.
Vevo also updated the design of its player, which is now bigger, and has beefed up the information on the artist, read lyrics and browse news on the band that can be explored in tandem with listening/viewing.
This change comes, not just to the website, but also the iPhone and Android apps, as well as the Facebook and Xbox apps. An iPad app is also on its way.
These updates make the Vevo experience more competitive with Spotify and Pandora -- with the added perk of videos.
This shiny overhaul also makes it easier to share what you are watching with any of your hundreds of Facebook friends -- which is a discovery and usership feature that no online service would dream of being left out of.
Now we will just have to see if these changes do more for adding new users or just keeping existing viewers on the site.
Pandora (NYSE: P) was set to open Friday morning at $10.79.
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Pandora, the leading internet radio service, gives people music they love
anytime, anywhere, through a wide variety of connected devices: laptop and
desktop computers, smartphones, connected BluRay players, connected TVs,
etc. Personalized stations launch instantly with the input of a single “seed” –
a favorite artist, song or genre. The Music Genome Project®, a deeply
detailed, hand-built musical taxonomy, powers the personalization or
Pandora. Using this musicological “DNA” and constant listener feedback
Pandora crafts personalized stations from the more than 800,000 songs that
have been analyzed since the project began in January 2000.
More than 75 million people throughout the United States listen to
personalized radio stations for free on Pandora through their PCs, mobile
phones and devices such as the iPad, and connected in-house devices
ranging from TVs to set-top boxes to Blu-Ray players. Mobile technology has
been a significant factor in the growth and popularity of Pandora, starting
with the introduction of the Apple app store for the iPhone in the summer of
2008. Pandora instantly became one of the most top downloaded apps and
today, according to Nielsen, is one of the top five most popular apps across
all smartphone platforms.
Pandora is free, simple and, thanks to connectivity, available everywhere
consumers are – at the office, at home, in the car and all points in between.
In 2009 the Company announced that Pandora would be incorporated into
the dashboard in Ford cars via SYNC technology; GM has already followed in
announcing plans to integrate Pandora into its vehicles and Mercedes-Benz
introduced their Media Interface Plus device that works with the
free Pandora iPhone app to provide direct control of Pandora from in-dash
stereo controls. This was all great news for the millions of Pandora listeners
who had been plugging their smartphones into car dashboards to listen to
personalized stations while driving. More than 50 percent of radio listening
happens in the car, making it a crucial arena for Pandora.
Today tens of millions of people have a deeply personal connection with
Pandora based on the delight of personalized radio listening and discovery.
These highly engaged listeners reinforce the value Pandora provides to: 1)
musicians, who have found in Pandora a level playing field on which their
music has a greater chance of being played than ever before; 2) advertisers,
who benefit from the multi-platform reach of Pandora, as well as its best
practices in targeting consumers for specific campaigns; 3) the music
industry, which has found in Pandora a highly effective distribution channel;
and 4) automobile and consumer electronics device manufacturers, who have
noted that incorporating Pandora into their product makes it more valuable
to consumers.
Pandora continues to focus on its business in the United States. The radio
arena has never been hotter, thanks to technology that enables radio to be
personalized to the individual and more accessible than ever before. Right
now millions of people listen to Pandora in the United States and we hope
someday to bring Pandora to billions of people around the world.
Timeline:
• 2000 – Tim Westergren’s Music Genome Project begins.
• 2005 – Pandora launches on the web.
• 2008 – Pandora app becomes one of the most consistently downloaded
apps in the Apple store.
• 2009 – Ford announces Pandora will be incorporated into car
dashboard. Alpine and Pioneer begin selling aftermarket radios that
connect to consumers’ iPhones and puts the control and command of
Pandora into the car dashboard.
• 2010 – Pandora is present on more than 200 connected consumer
electronics devices ranging from smartphones to TVs to set-top boxes
to Blu-ray players and is able to stream visual, audio, and interactive
advertising to computers, smartphones, iPads, and in-home connected
devices.
