We’re all creatures of habit. When something provides consistent results we turn that something into our favorite go-to point. I caught myself in one of these situations the other day when looking for music videos on-line. The defacto source for videos is now YouTube. It’s quick, simple…basically Google for videos. You can find music videos, movie clips, trailers, jackass clips, concerts…anything you want. But YouTube isn’t always the best source.
YouTube is quick and we’re all so used to going to YouTube for everything we all forget that there are OTHER places to find videos on-line. Specifically in the realm of music videos, places like VH1, MTV, AOL, Yahoo, and other web sites offer music videos that are of MUCH higher quality than those found on YouTube. Plus, you are guaranteed it’s the legit video, not someone’s fan video.
Sure, record labels are getting a clue and putting music videos on YouTube, but now that I’ve hit this realization I almost feel like they’re giving in. I won’t argue the benefit of posting content where everyone is going (YouTube, MySpace), but when you’re a huge record label or band, people will find you one way or another. Music is in demand all the time…kind of like a convenience store. If you need batteries or toothpaste you can go to the convenience store. If you need music videos you go to…YouTube? Yes, but should we instead be going to label sites and the likes of Yahoo?
I’ll admit that YouTube is the only source for those hard-to-find videos and bootlegs from concerts, but for “official” videos it’s less than stellar.
YouTube, much like Wikipedia, has turned into internet Wal-marts. Places that have more-or-less brainwashed us to use them as the single source of information and resources. Much like Wal-mart has put many Mom & Pop places out of business, YouTube and Wikipedia are doing the same.
I’m not claiming I’m above all this - I hit up these places once a day guaranteed. It is convenient and it’s sad but true that we’d rather sift through a bunch of garbage to find one gem instead of going to the jewelry store to find a bunch.
But where the non-YouTube sites have really failed is making the videos accessible. It might not be “hard” to find videos on VH1 or AOL, but obviously that’s not all they do. YouTube is video. Period. One visit shows you exactly what you’re looking for without so much as a single click. I’m not sure design is a solution to this problem, but it might be a start.
Of course, when was the last time VH1 or MTV entered any of our heads when it comes to thinking about music videos? But that’s another problem entirely.
You do have to sift through a lot of crap before you can find what you want on youtube, if they have it. I was looking for a video of the Ed Lover dance the other day (don’t ask) and all I could find were people doing the Ed Lover dance. It was mostly white teenagers dancing around like idiots. I went looking for videos and found some good ones on VH1 Classic’s site. They had a lot of good ones from the 80s, and not just pop. Plenty of hair metal and rock.
I’ve noticed all the junk on youtube as well. You have to be very specific with what you’re looking for. The front page that shows what videos other people are watching is kind of scary too.