Vevo updates its design with vertical video, adds user profiles, hires playlist curators and hosts for original video, plans paid tier later in 2016
Context & Ripple Effects
This redesign is the third act of a product overhaul that began with Vevo's iOS app revamp for US users last November and continued through its December acquisition of Showyou, which TechCrunch framed as a move against YouTube in subscription content. CEO Erik Huggers had already confirmed in February that a paid music video subscription service was in the works for this year.
First-order effects
- Vevo's audience gets user profiles and vertical video support immediately, while the newly hired playlist curators and hosts put original programming into production ahead of the planned late-2016 paid tier.
Second-order effects
- The curator-and-host hiring pushes Vevo into direct competition with YouTube for original music content and the advertising that follows it, building on the Showyou deal's stated ambition to take on YouTube in subscription content.
Third-order effects
- If the paid tier launches on schedule, Vevo completes its pivot from a free, label-owned music video aggregator into a hybrid ad-plus-subscription platform — a structure validated by the more than $500M in 2016 revenue and ~$200M in upfront ad buys reported a year later.
The trend: Music video platforms are layering subscriptions, originals, and personalization on top of ad-supported distribution as they try to differentiate from YouTube.