VH1 Classic Adds Video, Features
If there just isn’t enough Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cindy Lauper or Mudhoney in your online life, then you’ll be happy to know that VH1 Classic is making an effort to serve your needs. Their new site rollout is more video-centric, and features playlists compiled by VH1 staffers, such as their Ozzy Osbourne and Madonna “Box Sets.”
Of course, as much as I’d like to embed the Sex Pistols to properly kick off the week, there’ll be no such anarchy on the VH1. C’mon, music videos are primarily promotional tools for the music industry — you’d think they’d be spread as far and wide as possible.
Currently, there’s not much social interactivity outside of the forums, but the press release promises more to come: “Tools included in future site rollouts will allow users to rate, comment on, review and submit content.” I’d like to suggest one tool they could ad — search. That’s right, while you can browse to your hearts content, there’s no place to type “Kill the DJ” and come up with Morrissey singing “Panic.”
Previously, VH1 Classic’s broadband video offerings were to be found in their VSpot player, which spawns popup windows faster than Hall and Oates spawn smarmy pop hooks and similarly lacks basic features like search. The new site is certainly an improvement, and compared to last year’s homepage at the Internet Archive, they’ve hurdled leaps and bounds.
What’s interesting is that VH1 Classic was actually born with broadband and digital video in mind — it was launched in 2000 as a digital cable channel, and was rolled out alongside a VH1-branded broadband marketing campaign to cable subscribers. At the time, VH1′s then-president John Sykes told Cable World’s Rani Long:
Another benefit of catering to this age group is that they are the fastest-growing group of Web users. “Perfect candidates,” says Sykes, “for broadband cable content.”
Of course, at the time, Napster was broadband’s killer app and the MPAA was busy chasing down anyone trying to mess with CSS, so what did a television network have to fear from wider broadband adoption?
While VH1 is to be lauded for making their stock of videos available 24-7-365 online, my question is why not just partner with somebody who’s already built the technology and all the features to serve these ads set to music? Oh, right.
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personaly I would like to see much more artistes of the late 50′s and early 60′s, such as buddy holly-the platters -adam faith -boby vee -billy j kramer matt monroe -fats domino -billy fury -the searchers -ricky nelson -bobby vinton -the shadows -helen shapiro -cilla black -brenda lee the drifters -paul anka -tommy steele -the ventures -the springfeilds -the seekers -the bachelors -
I agree with Mark from France but he forgets that most of those artists did produce clean videos to showcase their music. It wasn’t until the 70s that artists began to produce the forerunner of music videos. Most of the older items out there (50s and 60s) are clips from variety shows or live concerts with terrible sound.