Google & Universal Alliance?

According to reuters.com; some people that are not allowed to talk about this topic said that Google Inc's YouTube and Universal Music Group are in talks to create a premium online music video service. If they reach a deal, the service could help Google to generate revenue from YouTube.

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A deal could represent a strong link between YouTube and the media industry, which has on occasion ordered the video-sharing site to delete clips of TV shows or music videos uploaded by users without the media companies' permission.

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Universal, the one of the largest music labels in the world, and YouTube, the popular video website, are in talks to create a site to showcase music videos by Universal artists. Maybe, the deal would be broadened out to include videos by artists at the other music labels (Sony Music, EMI Group and Warner Music).

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YouTube would also provide technology and advertising-sales support to help distribute Universal's video content to other Web sites. They are still working on the financial details of how the service would be run.

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The main objective of this site that would carry premium music videos and music-related content is to get higher advertising rates through YouTube. Nowadays, music companies typically get paid a share of any advertising revenue associated with a video on YouTube as well as a per-play payment for every video viewed.

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The talks between YouTube and Universal Music, whose artists include The Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus, started because in December, Warner Music ordered YouTube to pull down all music videos on the site featuring Warner artists, after contract negotiations between the two sides broke down. And they don’t want that this happen again.

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Universal's current licensing deal with YouTube expires at the end of the current month, and a new deal is expected for April. EMI is also in contract renewal talks with YouTube. Sony Music renewed its contract with YouTube last month.

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“YouTube said in a statement, "We are always working with our partners to find creative ways to connect music, musicians, and fans."”

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Juan Francisco

Twitter: Google's nightmare?

Recently, I have read a lot about Twitter, but not about the social networking. Everyone is talking about Twitter’s opportunities in search (http://www.search.twitter.com/), which are quite different from Google searches. Is different = better? Does this represent a problem to Google? Why is this relevant for e-marketing?

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The main difference between Google and Twitter’s searches is that Google looks for documents that have been produced, while Twitter looks for what was said on a given topic. We could describe Twitter search as a real-time search engine and social discovery tool. But what should we search with Twitter instead than with Google? One example could be a recommendation, if we are looking to a good place to eat sushi in Vancouver; it is easier, better and faster to receive a couple of recommendations from Twitter’s user that live in Vancouver than reading the 103,000 Google’s search results.

One implication for the companies is to which search engine they should pay more attention. Because most web site traffic comes from Google, especially if the company appears on the first page of results. But visitors that are referred by Twitter could spend more on the site than visitors from Google because the way Twitter visitors were referred is more customized.

Definitely, Google needs to pay attention to Twitter because they are offering something that they don’t do. At the same time this is a new challenge for marketers due to the fact that now they need to analyze how Twitter search engine could be used on the best way.

Juan Francisco