Musicians big and small will now have a new reason to rejoice about Android as Google has just provided a new way to generate some revenue off of the millions of users who watch their music videos everyday.
Starting today, we’re welcoming VEVO’s extensive library of official music videos from artists like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Kanye West and U2 onto the YouTube 2.0 app for Android, available around the world. To watch these videos your mobile phone needs to be running Android 2.2 (Froyo).  […]
In addition to these features, tens of thousands of YouTube partner videos will also now have pre-roll ads appear on the YouTube 2.0 app for Android. This not only expands distribution opportunities for partners like VEVO, but also opens up more revenue to partners distributing their content to mobile. Although we’ve tested ads on mobile over the years, this is our largest step in mobile monetization to date. (Official YouTube Blog)
Google also announced that the mobile ad market is on course to generate $1 billion in 2011, which should help convince a few artists to allow their music videos to be viewed upon mobile devices (as many artists only allow them to be viewed by desktops and notebooks).
With more users sporting an Android device, extending the ability to view their favorite videos upon their smartphone makes sense as it can help “starving artists” pay the bills (especially as the world climbs out of a recession).
Originally posted on January 12, 2011 @ 8:39 pm