Trend: Hip-Hop goes Web 2.0

Real world music and dance celebrities turn their hand to online video communities.

Trend description

YouTube continues to thrive as the Western web’s only relevant video outlet. Aiming to capitalize on the popularity of online video and social networking, a growing number of video community startups, including those founded by professional music and dance stars, are now coming online. However, to be successful, these sites have to provide a niche service or struggle against the overwhelming head-start that YouTube currently holds.

Cases
Ice Cube’s UVNTV


Rap artist turned film star Ice Cube is the latest entertainer to launch a video and social networking site. Working with partner DJ Pooh, a record producer and screenwriter, the multi-talented duo are overseeing the rollout of UVNTV (U View Network Television), a multi-channel web TV-style site featuring user-generated and professionally produced videos.

UVNTV now offers about a dozen channels, run both by large companies and individual artists – each channel will be responsible for its own quality control. Snoop Dogg’s Snoopadelic channel serves up the rapper’s own videos, and Nextreme TV shows extreme sports clips. All screened material is in a new Microsoft-developed format called Silverlight, which means it can be played on big screens, and videos can watch be watched at any time. UVNT also has social networking functionality which allows users to upload and share content and communicate with each other.

MC Hammer’s DanceJam


Early 90’s dance sensation MC Hammer has recently emerged from obscurity to head up a new Web 2.0 venture called DanceJam. The site is due to launch this month and is focusing on dance videos – users will be able to upload their own dance moves and learn from others. The site will be monetized through online advertising.

Drawing upon the popularity of reality shows like “Dancing With The Stars”, DanceJam will promote head-to-head competitions where contestants submit videos that are judged by site users. The site also will provide demonstrations and information about a wide variety of dances, and the DanceJam team has spent several months capturing different dance styles on video around the US – apparently they now have over 100 gigabytes of video that will soon be made available online.

Trend impact:
Sites like UVNTV and DanceJam are clearly facing an uphill battle as they attempt to carve out a dedicated online user base. However, although YouTube currently has the traffic, there is a possibility that users may become burned out on short clips and look elsewhere for longer, more specialized, higher quality video content. With the user-generated content craze still in full swing, the real long-term winners will surely be the platforms that are able to monetize unique service models that enable content producers to make money from their creativity.

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