EMI Sets Up Its Own Online Store As YouTube Tries Selling Music
from the try,-try-again dept
Lots of folks are trying to figure out new business models in the music space, and here we have two separate big companies testing out ideas that seem unlikely to work all that well. First up is EMI, the big record label that keeps insisting that its going a different route but can't seem to reign in its lawyers from taking the same old route. This time around, it's launching its own music download site, where it's promising lots of extras and goodies -- including some stuff for free. It will be interesting to see how the actual site is set up, but the idea of setting up just a label specific site seems destined to fail. People want a one-stop shop. They don't want to have to know that the music they like is on EMI. Imagine, back when people bought CDs, if they had to go to a different store for each record label. Maybe there's more to it than what's being described, but at first pass, this sounds like more of the same: a big record label sticking a square peg into a round hole, covering it with shiny paint, and talking about how awesome it is.Then there's Google, which has been struggling mightily to come up with ways to make money off of YouTube. At the same time, record labels have been complaining about how much "music" (accompanied by videos, of course) is available on YouTube, and the folks at Google put two and two together and will start offering options to buy the songs you hear on YouTube at partner sites such as Amazon or iTunes. While it's not a bad idea (why not offer people a chance to buy if they want it), it's hard to see this really getting that much traction. Some people may go ahead and buy out of convenience, but it's hard to see people actually doing that much music "shopping" this way.
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Filed Under: advertising, clickthroughs, music, portals, selling
Companies: emi, google, youtube
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maybe
As o the EMI they do own a chain of brick stores called HMV in the UK and sell all companies music this could be a on line version.
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"product placement"
I don't think it has anything to do with people "shopping" for music. This is a "what the hell" purchase. It's the reason your grocery store has magazines, candy bars, and other small price items stuffed all around the register.
I don't think anybody does the lion's share of their candy shopping at the checkout line, but if those Snickers didn't sell they wouldn't be there. A "Buy This Song" option seems like the same sort of thing - perhaps it's not a large percentage of people who take them up on it, but with the number of views they get in a day even a sub-1% clickthrough would be worth their while.
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Links to amazon
Like this tutorial I made for a game called onslaught
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Re: Links to amazon
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YouTube misses the mark
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Re: YouTube misses the mark
What drives me buggy tho is trying to weed through 600 extremely lousy compressions of a song until I find a video that doesn't sound like crap.
Clearly, most people have a terrible non-linear video editor. It's either too hard for them to use correctly, or they were too lazy to find the audio settings and let it use terrible defaults. It's not youtube messing up that audio (well, it was for a short period of time, but not anymore).
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Acutally I'd use it
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Youtube knows that music videos are a big draw
As for using it, well I do actually go to Youtube to check out music videos quite a lot. If I hear a snippet of a song on the radio and manage to figure out what it is, often there's a music video on youtube I can watch and preview the whole song. (Amazon does also have a short preview available but sometimes it's not enough to ID a song). I've bought quite a lot of singles off Amazon since its service started, probably about 3 dozen. I'd say 8-12 of them were bought after I viewed a song's video on youtube first.
When Maroon 5 & Rihanna released their video on Youtube this summer, it was frustrating that the song wasn't immediately available on Amazon, though Maroon 5's myspace page had an iTunes link -- with a partnership deal in place I assume they would have had that buy link up on Youtube the first day; so I do think this is a good step.
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Use it to preview, then buy
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Youtube music could work...
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I disagree...
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Re: I disagree...
Friends don't let friends purchase DRM. That goes double for family members.
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Re: Re: I disagree...
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This is not a store; it is advertising
In addition, Youtube actually has a decent recommendation engine, so people may not use it to shop, but they may well use it in the discovery process.
Last, it is a perfect example of capitalizing on 'free,' so I am surprised at your critical, skeptical tone. The free video promotes a tangible good. Granted, the tangible good is the same old shiny disc, but it is still using a free preview to promote the disc. Since Google is not producing the good, they are really limited to the products on the market. I could see this eventually being expanded to advertise concert tickets, band gear, and other complimentary goods.
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Re: This is not a store; it is advertising
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Buying music on YouTube
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Perfect Example of Free Promotion
In fact this may be the perfect way for Google to make money off of YouTube. Hire a team of people to watch the content and identify marketing opportunities. For example, to illustrate the possibilites imagine providing links on some of the viral video hits of the past:
Diet Coke and Mentos (obviously link to coca cola and mentos)
Links to Britany Spears music from the "Leave Brittany Alone" video.
Links to local pet store from the "Dramatic Hamster" video.
etc..
Obviously, this team would have to make arrangements with various web sites to provide compensation for the clickthrough links. But this could be the most lucrative way for YouTube to become profitable.
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Works everywhere else
If EMI set it up so people will get good deals, discounts or want to find similar artists there is no reason why a single label storefront would not work. It works just fine for cars, clothes, electronics, furniture, food, shoes, homewares, industrial equpiment etc.
Sure, music labels arent as recognisable as many other brands but looks like they are trying to change that.
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selling on youtube
the problem with selling on you tube is that it still a stream... there is so much free softwhere availible now that alls peaple to very easily record a stream and transfer it to mp3 with no more than a click of the mouse.
the paid streams we get paid on through rhaspady and napster dont add about to a hill of beans and belief me we get thousands of them.....exposure for artists now that is a differnt story but to sell music i would suggest download only sites like itunes...amazon.verizon ..ext....
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