I remember watching music videos on YouTube and it not being a hassle. I would type in the search box what I wanted, clicked the first result and BAM my music video. YouTube was and is great in that sense. You get instant and quick video content, can search for new things, discover different interests you may have, and communicate with others. Nowadays though, I find music video viewing via YouTube to be a far cry from what it used to be. Before I can even watch the video I want, I get hit with advertisements lasting between 10-30 seconds, with or without the option to skip. Some company called “Vevo” also hosts videos and its logo and ads takes over the sidebars and background to promote other musical artists and songs. I know, I know, I sound like I’m complaining, but in all honesty, can’t a person just once when accessing some sort of media not be hit with a blatant ad for sneakers, Gatorade, or cleaning supplies? However, this isn’t my only concern with the rise of advertisements on YouTube. It’s not even so much that that extra 30 seconds I have to wait to watch an HD music video is not worth it, but it’s the commercialization of what used to be a free and open video-sharing website that concerns me.
According to their Wikipedia page Vevo is a music video and entertainment website owned by SONY, Universal Music Group and Abu Dahbi Media Company. The Vevo service launched in 2009 and YouTube provided the hosting, with Google and Vevo sharing the advertising and revenue. The premise of the whole website is that it’s supposed to be a hulu for music videos, with the goal being to attract more high-end advertisers. The Vevo music channel has more views than any other channel on YouTube at 3.5 billion and therefore its traffic is heavily sought after by advertisers. Over my YouTube viewing years, I have noticed more and more music videos being hosted by Vevo. Even when I try to escape the lunacy of short ads before any video view by clicking on an alternate link, BAM, there goes Vevo again. When will it ever stop?
In Taking on the System: Rules For Change in a Digital Era by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, we run into some similar themes we have discussed thus far in class. We have learned about the changes businesses need to make to be more successful in this day and age. We have learned how blogs have allowed for the growth of citizen-journalism causing changes in the news industry. We have also learned how social networking and other media tools have allowed for great social upheavals and changes. Zuniga describes his frustration with the government in the post 9/11-era in which government officials were being unclear about foreign threats and dangers, and how we spiraled into a war that today, is commonly referred to as a mistake. He was,” unsatisfied being a passive consumer.” He wanted to do his part to improve the world, but didn’t know how. That’s where blogging came in for him and other political-saavy folk who had an alternative opinion from what was being presented by the current media system. Their use of social networking and new media tools created change and today, although still a fresh concept, is now being more readily used by people and now, as we have learned from The Cluetrain Manifesto, corporations.
Zuniga breaks down one of the most successful and recent uses of social networking for change: the Obama presidential campaign. Campaign managers and strategists used social networking to reach new audiences, rally support beyond that of traditional media, and more importantly, outfox the competition. Zuniga describes how the comfortable and established are more invested in holding their positions of privilege than in risking new ways of writing, thinking, innovating, exploring, and governing. He goes on and explores how these new tools have and will allow people to literally take on the system. So now, these new ways of writing, thinking, innovating, and exploring can take place. So what happens now? We have made changes, changes are in progress, but now it seems that all the “bad guys” are onto our strategy. What do we do now when the tools we used to make changes can now be put into the wrong hands and create bad changes? If Vevo continues hosting more and more content on YouTube, it could become the only place on the web that can legally play or allow other sites to embed their content. So basically, the concept of a free and open video-sharing website would essentially be gone. It would become just like the regular tube.
This all harks back to a theme we have lightly touched upon so far in class; the idea that while these tools can be used for good, they can also be used for bad. Companies, government officials, candidates, and other groups can and will catch on, they will learn about these tools and create, like the music industry has with Vevo, a way to get profit in the end. They have a chance of winning and making a change just like the rest of us. YouTube has allowed for great talents and musical artists to be discovered, but it has also allowed the Rebecca Black’s to slip through the cracks. Bigots like Alexandra Wallace can rant on about Asians at the library. So we have to be careful because now that we all know how to “take on the system”, what’s stopping the system from reorganizing and reverting back to how things used to be? Couldn’t they then make things worse than before? Zuniga does a great job of outlining how to take on the system in 2008, but now, I’m just worried about years to come- what’s next?
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