YouTube to launch music site with Universal

Google's YouTube and Universal Music Group are aiming to turn Vevo.com into the premier music video website

From Times Online

Google's YouTube and Universal Music Group, the world's largest recording company, are to launch a stand-alone music video website.

The companies are aiming to turn Vevo.com into the premier music video website. Discussions are under way to bring in the other major music publishing groups.

Vevo will be the only place web users can watch high quality video from Universal's roster of big names including U2, 50 Cent and The Killers. The site will be accessed via a new Vevo channel on YouTube or directly at Vevo.com

YouTube will supply the online infrastructure and sales support to showcase Universal's content. The two companies will share advertising revenue from the new site. Vevo, due to launch later this year, will also tap other revenue streams by offering concert tickets and merchandise in due course.

The deal marks a significant step in Google's attempt to generate cash from YouTube, which it acquired for $1.65 billion in 2006. It could also help to ease the music industry's search for greater profits from online music and video by attracting premium advertisers who have been put off in the past by YouTube's high proportion of low quality user-generated videos.
Universal, owned by Vivendi, is by far the most popular channel on YouTube. Its music videos have been viewed more than 3.5 billion times.

Doug Morris, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Universal Music Group, said: "Vevo will bring the most compelling premium music video content and services to the world's single largest online video audience."

He added: "We believe that at launch, Vevo will already have more traffic than any other music video site in the United States and in the world. And this traffic represents the most sought after demographic for advertisers, especially as advertising dollars continue their shift from old media to new."

Universal and YouTube also announced a new contract to allow its content to continue to be licensed on YouTube. The double deal represents a change of direction for the sometimes fractious ties between YouTube and the media industry over copyright issues and licensing terms. Warner Music Group in December ordered YouTube to pull down all music videos on the site featuring Warner artists, after contract negotiations between the two sides broke down.

YouTube is still in dispute with PRS for music, representing composers and songwriters in the UK, over licensing terms and has blocked premium music videos in the UK.

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, welcomed the deal. He said: "Technology has allowed fans to discover music in endless ways while creating new business opportunities for artists and labels alike."

YouTube, the world's most popular online video site, has been under pressure to create more revenue and has introduced a range of advertising features. YouTube has also introduced technology to help media companies identify their music, videos or TV programs uploaded by the public so that they can choose to have the content taken down or place adverts on it.
Music companies are paid a share of the advertising revenue associated with their content on YouTube as well as a small sum for every time the video is viewed.

The deal comes as other companies try out new ways to make money from online music. The four major music companies have done a deal with MySpace, the social networking site owned by News Corp, parent company of The Times, to create music streaming service MySpace Music from which ad revenue is shared.

Microsoft accepts defeat to Wikipedia and kills off Encarta

Microsoft accepts defeat to Wikipedia and kills off Encarta

From Times Online
March 31, 2009

Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter

Microsoft has announced it will kill off Encarta, its encyclopaedia software and website, later this year, which has crumbled in the face of competition from Wikipedia, the leading encyclopaedia on the web.

After nearly 15 years since it arrived on shelves, Microsoft announced on its website that Encarta will stop being available by the end of the year in most places worldwide.
The company said: “On October 31, 2009, MSN Encarta Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009”

The move is a tacit acceptance that Microsoft could no longer compete with the overwhelming popularity of Wikipedia, the free online website that launched in 2001. In January, Wikipedia got 97 per cent of the visits that web users in the US made to online encyclopaedias, according to Hitwise, the internet tracking company. Encarta trailed in second, with 1.27 per cent.

Wikipedia is updated quickly by editors who volunteer their time, allowing it to record events fast. By this morning, the entry on Encarta already stated that it was to be discontinued.
Meanwhile, Encarta articles would be quickly left embarrassingly outdated. The entry on Hillary Clinton still refers to her as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential election, months on from the end of her campaign.

Without making explicit reference to Wikipedia, Microsoft explained on its decision on its website. “The category of traditional encyclopaedias and reference material has changed,” it said. “People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business.”

Encarta was a pet project for Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who was rebuffed in the late 1980s by Encyclopaedia Britannica as a partner to make reference articles available through a CD-ROM.
Mr Gates believed he could change the encyclopaedia business, and eventually signed up with the lesser known Funk & Wagnalls reference books. However, though Encarta successfully shook up the market, Wikipedia better exploited it many years later.

Google boss Eric Schmidt calls on press to work with search engines

Google boss Eric Schmidt calls on press to work with search engines

From Times Online
April 8, 2009

Patrick Foster, Media Correspondent

Newspapers should be working with internet search engines instead of fighting them, the head of Google said yesterday.

Responding to criticism that internet aggregators were reaping revenues by "misappropriating" material created by news organisations, Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said that the industry should work with his company to tailor news to individual consumers.

Newspaper groups have been hit by falling circulations and advertising revenues, at a time when more people than ever before get their news from the internet.

Speaking at the Newspaper Association of America's convention in San Diego, Mr Schmidt said: "We think we can build a business with you.That is the only solution we can see.

"I would encourage everybody: think in terms of what your reader wants. These are ultimately consumer businesses and if you p*** off enough of them, you will not have any more."

Mr Schmidt's comments come after the chairman of the Associated Press, Dean Singleton, accused web firms of misappropriating his company's stories.

“We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more," he said. “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.”

Robert Thomson, editor of The Wall Street Journal, whose parent company News Corporation also owns The Times, recently accused websites such as Google of acting like parasites.

He told The Australian newspaper: “There is no doubt that certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet.

“It’s certainly true that readers have been socialised – wrongly I believe – that much content should be free. And there is no doubt that’s in the interest of aggregators like Google who have profited from that mistaken perception."