The largest music company in the world, Universal Music Group, has reached an agreement with YouTube to create an online platform for music videos, to be called Vevo.  The agreement is said to include the licensing of Universal recordings to be used in user-generated videos on YouTube.

This is the latest of efforts on behalf of YouTube to offer a larger spectrum of content to its mammoth audience.  YouTube is owned by powerhouse and major player Google, who is also the leader in the search market.  In the agreement, Universal Music Group and Google are to share revenue generated from advertising on both websites.  Vevo’s anticipated release is later this year, with ongoing negotiations with other major labels to potentially join in. 

Being backed by Google certainly will not hurt Vevo, who will naturally acquire traffic and attention from prior media interest and user anticipation.  Vevo will have the capacity to deliver high quality music videos to the largest online video audience, an impressive task.  Down the line, users will be able to purchase merchandise and concert tickets on Vevo. 

 In 2006 and 2007, music companies were among the first to license their content on YouTube, in large part because music videos are popular on the site.  The new relationships emerging from changing technology are redefining business models as we knew them, transforming them into streamlined modern marvels that are above all, user-friendly.  Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your Fort Lauderdale interactive marketing, web design and branding firm.

Google is set to start displaying advertisements today to users based on their interests, which are determined using their previous online activities.  This form of advertising is known collectively as behavioral targeting, and has been adopted by most of Google’s competitors, drawing criticism from privacy advocates and some Congress members.

Google announced that it plans to offer new methods for users to protect their privacy.  Notably, Google will be the first of the behavior targeting advertisers to give users the ability to view and edit the compiled information about their interests, the information used to place similar ads on their screens.  Rival Yahoo gives its users the choice to opt out of “interest-based advertising”; Google is committed to provide the same service.  Privacy advocates praise Google’s decision to allow users access to the information compiled regarding their interests.

As for how the technology works, Google will use a cookie, which is a small piece of text within a Web browser.  The cookies have the ability to track users who visit any of the hundreds of thousands of sites that show ads through Google’s AdSense program. Google then assign those users to specific categories based on the content of the pages they view. An example of this is a user visiting real estate sites; they will be categorized as a potential homebuyer.

Google then uses the compiled and categorized information to place ads that are relevant to specific users and their interests. A potential homebuyer may see an ad about real estate not only on a real estate website, but also on an entertainment or news site that uses AdSense .  These targeted advertisements are also available on YouTube, which is owned by Google.  Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your Fort Lauderdale based web design and SEO solution.

The internet has evolved into a fast and powerful medium, acquiring more users annually since its birth.  Still, for some, the soft inviting couch is too much temptation to ward off.  These individuals prefer the old fashioned “entertain me” method, and find it more relaxing than performing searches for programming, pointing and clicking.  Those individuals may be pleasantly surprised with Blinkx.

Today’s web is increasingly being used to watch not only movies, but television shows on sites like Netflix and Hulu.  Many consider the internet to be an active form of entertainment, due to the interactive experience.  For this reason, it comes as no surprise that people have begun to develop ways to utilize the customization and flexibility that is the internet to fashion innovative forms of passive entertainment experiences.

Blinx is a video search engine.  Recently, Blinx has recently added two new buttons to its video search engine: “Inform me” and “Entertain me”.  The inform button displays a TV news show, similar to Google News with clips of various stories from around the World Wide Web in a continuous stream.  The entertain me button displays a stream of short clips that are drawn from popular entertainment sites such as YouTube.

The user can opt to simply sit back and enjoy the show, or use available content controls.  All the user need do is move the mouse over the screen, where available forward and back buttons appear, should they find the current stream boring.  The “more information” button will produce a more in-depth screen with a variety of options. Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your Fort Lauderdale interactive marketing and web design firm.

It is predicted that many will be watching the presidential inauguration on January 20th on mobile devices, as lives become increasingly busy and mobile.  No matter where people are, they are able to access information and events via smart phones and other devices.

This creates an opportunity for MobiTV, a broadcaster of live television spanning 20 mobile networks including AT&T, Alltel and Sprint.  The presidential debates in October created a spike in views for MobiTV, and those views have led to roughly 5 million subscriptions to the station.  The capacity of 3G networks is increasing daily and other types of broadcast technology, such as 4G networks are increasing daily.  Popular shows provided on MobiTV include “The Office” and 30 Rock”, potentially “CSI” in the future.

The popular station can also deliver video over Wi-Fi if a subscriber’s phone is set up for it.  The company’s competitors include services like Qualcomm’s MediaFLO, SlingPlayer.  MobiTV intends to widen its selection of available programming to increase demand and deflect competitors.

According to the company, the largest obstacle remains the fact that accessing live TV from your mobile device is still a relatively new commodity, and it will take more time for users to catch on to it and make it as mainstream as email.  Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your South Florida interactive marketing and web design firm.

YouTube is consistently evolving and increasing in popularity, with users watching longer videos.  While some users enjoy broadcasting themselves, there are even more who prefer to simply watch others broadcast.  The view-only users may be sharing more than they are aware of, as their information is also publicly available.

YouTube users may subscribe to follow certain clips, channels, or collections of videos from an individuals or companies that interest them.  Users receive reminders about new clips from the sources they have subscribed to.  What these users may not be aware of is that their user name and photo are normally listed on the pages of the channels they are subscribed to, and there is no option to keep subscriptions private.

The slogan of YouTube is “Broadcast Yourself”, and it is not widely understood that they also broadcasting user’s taste in videos.  Information about any channel a user opts to follow, or subscribe to, is available to anyone in the world.  This is not explained when users sign up for a YouTube account or when they opt to use the subscription feature.

Recently YouTube announced its plans to implement a newsfeed, similar to Facebook’s.  Controversy about what YouTube does with user’s private information and disclosure of use of that information is growing. 
Factor in the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988, wherein following the video rental history of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was published, the act was passed banning the disclosure of video viewing records. It will be interesting to see how the many privacy issues amoung internet-based companies unfold.   Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your Fort Lauderdale web design and interactive marketing solution.