Here's an earthshattering breakthrough in the music and live concert world from YouTube.
Now I love it, adore it, but in one way, I feel sorry for a number of local venues online who've tried to do this but not effectively (I was involved in one venue in Dublin for example), largely due to funding. And now overnight, their game is up.
They're faced with the power of Google and YouTube basically wiping them out. YouTube have done this live concert concept really well - and, as they say, such is life......
For a long time, music has been a part of the digital space. Indeed, itunes now dominates the market in album sales and so much so, it's meant the detriment of offline retailers such as HMV.
Music sharing online of course too, has become the BIG issue for music labels as content is passed around for free. I saw a recent reliable statistic that only 6% of music is paid for - or if you like, 94% get music for free. And if that's not totally accurate as a stat, it makes a very clear point - most online music is free.
I've also blogged before, about the power of Google owned YouTube and its great ambitions to become the world's dominant broadcaster. We know about its terrific free video platform and recently, the launch of 100 pro-channels to allow third parties provide programming. Including live streaming.
(You'll see that blog from May 10th on the right hand side or herehttp://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/05/youtube-third-wave-and-especially.html)
It works, it's great and it's powerful. And it moves YouTube from being a home for "Kirstys home videos" to being a serious broadcaster.
So now they've moved the goalposts again by bringing in live music channels, showing live gigs, by cool bands, linked through Social Media (so you can interact with the session or indeed, chat up a friend) and guess what? All for free.
The quality is fantastic and notably one channel called 'The Bowery' which they launched in February + is featured at the top of this page, with regular top line gigs using full digital sound. And it's free. Did I say it's free?
So YouTube is bringing live concerts to a global audience - a really good close second to actually being there - with the power of Google behind it. Added to that, you can actually click through for tickets, band updates, fanzines, merchandising and so on. Of course there's a "live" conversation going on too with viewers commenting on the concert. It also shows relevant tweets, Facebook posts and so on.
It creates a global community of people with shared interests in particular music or band types.
It also allows unknown bands to reach out too - thanks to YouTube.
So quickly but surely, YouTube is knocking down all the entertainment sectors one by one in bringing itself into glory. Live concerts? Done. And done really well.
What's next? Sports.
Watch out.
There's a Train a'coming.
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