When I was searching for Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas video a couple weeks ago, I noticed a Vevo overlay that played on the YouTube video. It looked as though whatever Vevo was had taken over Mariah’s page. I thought nothing of it and kept it moving until I saw the same overlay on Timbaland’s YouTube channel last week. I thought it was weird to see an artist’s username changed from artist to artistVEVO, such as TimbalandVEVO, so I did a little research on Vevo. Vevo is a new platform that will offer video provided by three major labels, EMI, Sony Music Group, and Universal Music Group. Vevo will host 85 percent of the videos while YouTube will host the remaining 15 percent.

I think Vevo will completely change the user experience on YouTube. The platform provides higher quality videos, but it doesn’t come with the cost of advertisements being played prior to a video starting based upon your aggregate usage. For me- that is beyond aggravating. I hate seeing ads where I don’t want them. However, there are some benefits to the platform. When watching on YouTube, you are guaranteed the original version of the video. When you embed the video on an external site, you get the high quality version of the video but the Vevo overlay is not shown.

On each artist’s Vevo YouTube page, Vevo displays links to its website, Vevo.com. On the platform, you can watch an artist’s official video with lyrics, extra behind the scenes footage, and interviews. Plus, you can create a playlist of videos – similar to the way you can with Grooveshark.

People are referencing Vevo as the Hulu for music videos. One negative about Hulu is that it does not include all content. For example, I’ve seen a television series that only included two episodes out of five seasons of video.I hope that Vevo can get the music video library of all of the participating record labels uploaded. I also hope that the platform can upload the music videos as soon as they are produced. So much of ambiguous uploading is caused by labels and artists uploading videos weeks after they are produced. Understanding that people want content quick and in the best quality available will help Vevo be successful. People will embrace the new platform if it honors these two requirements.

About once a week I look at the traffic on my blog site. I would never suggest for someone to look at their web traffic daily. I don’t think it’s healthy because you become more driven by the number of people visiting your site vs. being driven by the love of your content and wanting to share it!

I reviewed my blog traffic this past Saturday and noticed that an increase in traffic was coming from Alltop. Knowing the basis of Alltop and its creation of a location for all the top blogs for hundreds of topics, I figured there was no way Alltop would bring traffic to my little ol blog. Yet – sure enough, there was 6inchvinyl, the 6th blog to be featured on the music section of Alltop! And I’m above the fold. How freaking cool! I also beat out MSN and the New York Times on the list.

I’ve naturally assumed Neenz, who is one of people who attended the Social Media Leaders dinner and definitely one of the most amazing people I met at BlogWorld, worked some magic to get my blog on Alltop. See – Neenz is the Chief Evangelist of leading news aggregation for the site. That’s just my guess but I’m still wondering how I got there. I DO know that I’m not going to wonder too loudly, drawing attention to myself, to get my site pulled down. That would be a no no and #superfail!

When I get a better design, I will have this badge on the side column. But until then, I’ll keep it on this post:

In January of 2008, I bought a Mac computer. Correction – my parents bought me a Mac computer With me switching over to my Mac I left thousands of songs behind. For a few months after, I synched my iPod to my PC which allowed me access to that music library. When I began downloading music on my Mac, I synched my iPod to my Mac because I wanted to have access to my most current downloads. So, for the last year+ I’ve been without all my music. I can tell you it has been miserable!

About 2 months ago, I bought a Lacie Rugged hard drive – which is supposed to be one of the best on the market. More important than that, I like it because it’s orange and I like bright things that are different. The Lacie I purchased holds 250 GB, which is more than enough space to hold the music from my PC, my Mac, as well as back up all the content from my Mac. My PC has hit the dust! It is only usable if the screen has something to prop it up and the cord doesn’t charge the comp, the cord only keeps it powered if it’s in at the right angle – you can imagine my desire to get all the music off.

So, I did it last Sunday. That’s right – i transferred allllll the music from my PC. One and a half hours and 4800+ songs later, I transferred my music. Now I only wish I knew how to sync the hard drive to my iTunes! Shouldn’t be that hard, right???

I’m loving Blip.fm, a new music sharing site. When I registered I became a DJ and could become friends with other DJs. The purpose of the platform is to “blip” music, which is somewhat like a tweet but the blip has audio and/or video embedded in the message. All of my blips are located on my user profile, very similar to the way in which messages are displayed on Twitter. That sounds like a whoooooole lot, but think about it this way: Blip.fm is like the music version of Twitter that allows you to include songs in your messages.

I like to send out Tweets of the music I listen to as I listen. Traditionally, I would have to search on YouTube for a video and hope that I find a high quality one. I would post my Tweet with the YouTube video link and that would be it. But Blip.fm provides three features that I think will change the way I share music on Twitter:
1. When searching for a song, I can preview the song with a single click. It’s very simple! I don’t have to click, go to a separate page, wait for the video to load, go back to the previous page if the video isn’t right, then start the process all over with the next video. None of that on Blip.fm. I can preview as many searched videos that I want all on the same page.
2. I can link profiles: Twitter, Facebook, etc. I can send one message that includes Twitter handles and hashtags, and it will automatically post to whatever post profiles I have linked. The message that is displayed on the other networks includes a link back to Blip.fm that will allow the reader to listen to my music.
3. All of the music that I blip is displayed on my user profile. This is great because people can see what I’m listening to in one location. On Twitter, my music tweets are intermixed with other tweets but this provides a more focused platform for solely music content.

The first negative that I have seen thus far is that the link that is shared on the social networks takes you to a section of Blip.fm that shows other people who have sent blips about the same artist. I would have much preferred that link to take the reader to my personal profile to see all of my blips vs. a mix of blips by other DJs. The second negative is regarding a concern over ease of use. If someone clicks a link that is included in my blip and they are taken to Blip.fm, they may not immediately find where to play the music. I know I didn’t see it at first and it took me a good 10 seconds! That’s 10 seconds for me and 30 seconds for you

Those are only minor details yet not enough to make me stop using the platform. As of now, I like Blip.fm and will try to find additional uses for this innovative 3rd party Twitter website.