The easiest way to understand VEVO is that it is to music videos what Hulu is to TV shows: a corporate (in this case record labels) founded, ad-supported way to aggregate and serve up videos on the Web. Instead of having to wade through all the user-made junk on YouTube to find the real, high-grade and high-quality music videos, VEVO's channel features only label or artist-produced videos, with great sound and video quality (though not HD yet).

The Kanye West Twitter page has since been taken down. With past Twitters like "and I just keep doing my thing…putting out G.O.O.D. music and cultivating my craft" and thanking America for electing Barack Obama, the page had all the makings of another stump for which West could shout from, except for one major detail: It wasn't updated nearly enough for it to actually belong to West, who posts upwards of ten times a day on his blog.

R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo has launched his very own blog called "Year of The Gentleman" to promote his album of the same title. In his blog, Ne-Yo writes about his experiences on his latest tour alongside R&B diva Alicia Keys and newcomer, Jordin Sparks. He also posts pictures with fans and writes about all of his favorite things, from cars to cologne.

The singer also gives his fans the ability to send their mothers a personalized greeting for Mother's Day, encouraging them to get "Closer" (the title of the first single off of The Year of the Gentleman) to the women who raised them.

But how close will Ne-Yo be getting with his fans through this blog? Pretty close. He has added personal pictures from his tour as well as videos. He even admits in one entry that he thinks Jordin is "kinda sexy in person."

ikill4u784 says, "OMG! it cant sneak up as most views in less than a week. i've never even seen this with 25m views b4!"

Chargrad says "What... The... Hell... even with hot hot sex in the title how can this have got so many views?!?"

mattjsrules says, "This only had 4 million views 2 weeks ago wtf? someone must of refreshed it 80 million times or someone hacked."

The amount of online "chatter" about an upcoming album release directly correlates to higher physical album sales, according to two researchers with New York University's Stern Business School. Professor Vasant Dhar and former student Elaine Chang observed the trends of 108 albums released during the first two months of 2007 to see how different outside elements affected (or predicted) sales once the albums became available, and found that all of them had some effect or another. But certain elements of online chatter-namely blogs and social networks-seemed to be fairly accurate predictors of future success.

The researchers followed the Amazon sales ranks for each of the 108 albums over a period of eight weeks (they said that Nielsen SoundScan stats would have been ideal, but they are costly and proprietary), as well as articles, blog postings, and MySpace friend counts about them. The blogosphere appeared to be most strongly correlated to better album sales-if 40 or more legitimate (written by normal people and not by marketers) blog posts were made before an album's release, sales ended up being three times the average.

That trend doesn't just apply to music from the Big Four, either. Albums from independent labels enjoyed the same level of success. But if an album was from a Big Four record label, sales increased five-fold after 40 legit blog posts. If blog posts crossed 250, album sales turned out to be six times the average, regardless of label.

The hip hop artist swore off MTV after losing out yet again at the channel's Music Video Awards, and since then, he's been working overtime to post on his site. Yesterday alone, Kanye posted five times. He's a regular Michael Crichton.

What's Kanye blogging about? Everything from his fave YouTube clips (he's a big fan of Feist and Brit indie band Bat for Lashes), to his favorite sneakers. But Kanye's favorite subject? Himself, of course. The blog is chock full of pics, videos and news clips confirming Kanye as "the king of rap."

But don't hold your breath. That impassioned young fellow is Chris Crocker, a 19-year-old from Tennessee whose 15 minutes (seconds?) of fame just might not quite be over: Variety is reporting that a television production company, 44 Blue Productions, has inked a deal with him for a potential TV show. It's not totally serendipitous, as the entertainment site explained that Crocker has actually had a sizeable MySpace following for some time now, and that he's been on 44 Blue's radar for almost a year.

Toth dresses like Elvis, sings an employment law rock 'n' roll anthem and asks interactive questions in what he claims is an effort to encourage companies to pay more attention to employment law.

"Don't get me wrong. I like attorneys. I am an attorney," Toth said. "It's just that I'd like to help companies avoid paying lots of money to attorneys unnecessarily."

The blog is designed to "make employment law fun and engaging, but educational at the same time," Toth said.

This past weekend's worldwide Live Earth concert might eventually impact the rising water level caused by melting glaciers, but it has already been a "watershed" for simultaneous video streams.

By Saturday afternoon, MSN said it had set a new record for the "most simultaneous viewers of any online concert ever," with 10 million streams.

The event represents a "milestone in live Internet broadcasting," said Joanne Bradford, MSN chief media officer. She predicted "an even greater number of streams" as viewers return to watch on-demand footage of the performances of about 100 artists, which will be available at LiveEarth.MSN.com for the next several weeks.

From 1 pm - 5 pm EST, our bloggers will be at work, chatting about the action on the TV screens. Feeds will come in from around the world, and we'll throw some opinions out there. Who rocks harder, Foo Fighters or Fall Out Boy? Who has more stage presence, Madonna or Shakira? Figure it out and get back to us on Saturday.

Instead of doing what everyone else has done and create a blog to leak music to people ahead of release dates illegally, I thought (largely since I work in the industry and people's lack of care or respect for the hard work artists and the people who put out records appals me) I'd create a little blog to post the names, indelible and set out for all to see, of those people who've been given the care of having an early copy of a release and have set that responsibility aside and leaked the record they were entrusted with.

I feel perhaps a bit vindictive doing this, but on the other hand, the lack of care brought to the table by the other parties whose names will be listed here is more than grossly inappropriate.

The guy has a point. It's not terrifically original, and it falls on the side of the greedy music industrialists and copyright law Nazis, and it assumes that mp3 bloggers are some sort of masked supervillains, but it is a point. And it's something to think about, especially if you're us, and you have the access (promos!) and the tools (Interneting!) to share these things: Why do you want to deliberately hurt the artist you love?

Maybe you're tired (read: jealous) of seeing flashy cars and expensive chains on videos, or you're familiar with the way major record labels throw around cash (read: make it rain). It's more likely you wanna hear more music, and you don't always have the dough.

The firm's president and CEO Leslie Moonves said: "Last.fm is one of the fastest growing online communities out there."

He said Last.fm's strength in building communities around music and syndicating content was "central to CBS".

He added: "Their demographics also play perfectly to CBS's goal to attract younger viewers and listeners across our businesses."

The initiative starts today with the launch of social networks for seven contemporary hit radio stations across the country. KYLD-FM (WILD) San Francisco bows The Wild Space, WKSC-FM (Kiss) Chicago introduces The Mob, WHTZ-FM (Z100) New York has the Z-Zone, WIHT-FM (Hot 99.5) Washington D.C. has the Hot Spot, KDWB-FM (103.1 KDWB) Minneapolis is launching Connect, KHKS-FM (Kiss) Dallas bows Kiss Nation and WLDI-FM (WILD) West Palm Beach also is introducing a network called The Wild Space.

The sites will be individually managed by each station but share a common format and architecture. Onesite.com, a provider of social networking technology solutions to third parties, is handling the back-end for the networks. Onesite, a subsidiary of web hosting company Catalog.com Inc., provides similar services to the likes of NBC Universal's iVillage. Evan Harrison, executive VP of Clear Channel and head of its online music and radio unit, sees the local element of the sites as an important differentiator between other social networking destinations.

Not only can Clear Channel monetize the sites with targeted online spots from local advertisers, he says but also people using the networks have a better chance of making lasting connections with other users because they will share more regional affiliations. By contrast other social networks are focused on national and even international audiences.

***

Clear Channel plans to drive traffic to the social networks via the "listen Live" Web radio streaming area on the flagship sites of the stations. As part of the initiative, each station that has a social network will introduce a new chat feature in the web radio player that will feature profile pictures of members of the social network who are participating in the chat.

Users will be able to click on the user profiles in the chat area to enter and explore the social network. Stations will also promote the social networks through on-air plugs and special stunts and promotions centered around the sites.

Each social network will have a user experience similar to MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others offer. Users can create profiles, customize them with HTML codes and widgets, upload photos, music and video, blog, and add friends.

Rolling Stone is the "authority figure" for judging music (just check out all their Wikipedia links), which doesn't reflect this generation's obsession with consumer-generated content. Blanchard plans to launch a separate site that will be a social network for music fans, complete with profiles and the ability to have a say in their "Best of" lists. Blanchard called it the "American Idol version of lists." Let's hope Sanjaya doesn't make it on any of those.

Blanchard also plans on digitizing all 1,000 back issues of Rolling Stone, to be available on the website or to purchase as a DVD set. This may be done by Christmas, so you can check Dad off the list.

I think RollingStone.com's makeover is highly overdue, and this is the perfect way to do it: keep the magazine just the way it is but add another online element that embodies youth culture.

When Keith Blanchard, Wenner Media's executive director for online media, including Us Weekly, Rolling Stone, and Men's Journal, asked our journalism class how many people visit Rolling Stone's website, only one person raised his hand.

In recent weeks, albums from indie acts The Shins and Arcade Fire both recently debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts, selling about 90,000 units each. The two bands soared past releases by entrenched mainstream artists such as Christina Aguilera and Nickelback. And this week, Modest Mouse, a longtime independent powerhouse – now signed to Sony – made a splash with "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank."

The commercial explosion is no accident. Indie labels may have finally found a way to harness the Internet's sizable community of tastemakers. These music labels are bringing bloggers who have a reputation for posting legal and illegal MP3 tracks into the fold by purposefully leaking albums ahead of the release.

Much as iTunes created a palatable model of digital downloading, these labels increasingly rely on carefully controlled – and sometimes uncontrolled – leaks of MP3 files to publicize upcoming records. Ever since the arrival of file-sharing sites such as Napster and Grokster, entertainment firms have grappled with the question of whether to crack down on the sharing of copyright material or find a way to harness its spread to boost music sales. Even as major entertainment firms mull similar questions relating to the spread of unauthorized clips on YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, they will be keeping close watch on the effectiveness of such "leak" strategies by small labels.

Instead, budding musicians will be asked to sign up on a record label Web site such as www.columbiademos.co.uk or www.rcademos.co.uk to blog their music, photos and videos.

"Blogging is clearly one of the major trends in music, media and entertainment," said Sony BMG's U.K. and Ireland Music Entertainment Chairman and Chief Executive Ged Doherty.

"A hundred thousand new blogs go online each day at the moment, and the blogosphere is doubling every 230 days, so it makes complete sense for the major labels to use the process in a creative way to encourage, discover and communicate with new artists," he said.

The move echoes strategies used by start-ups such as Amsterdam-based Sellaband and San Francisco-based social-networking site Bebo to attract talent and get artists known quickly to a fast-growing audience.

From Monday the next Arctic Monkeys must upload a video or MP3 audio package to a new SonyBMG website where it will be assessed by label bosses and any musician or fan who chooses to log on at columbiademos.co.uk or rcademos.co.uk.

The change is necessary because Mr Doherty does not believe that recorded music, overall, will recover. "Digital sales are not going to make up the decline in physical CD revenue," he says. "By 2010 income from CDs will be down 50 per cent. The old world is gone for ever.

"We need to enter into a new relationship with our artists, where they see us as partners rather than the enemy." The demo blogs are designed to create an open, transparent access point for musicians.

Blogging is one of the major trends in music, media and entertainment, and we think it's about time that a major record label uses the new medium to find and communicate with new artists

We want to offer all those artists out there a new, efficient way of presenting yourself to our label's A&R managers, and using blogs for this purpose will be drastically easier for all involved parties.

Because we are open for submissions and conversations with interested artists, and the market-place, in general.

What happens if you guys like me / my band?

If we like your band we will first bounce your blog links around internally and collect feedback, and see how high the collective level of interest is. We may contact you, or visit one of your shows, or request more information, at any time.

If things get more serious we may offer you a development deal or some other form of collaboration – this all depends on the individual A&R manager that will engage with you but you will be engaged in normal A&R process.

The abolition of DRM would enable all MP3 users to access music from any online music store, including iTunes.

"This is clearly the best alternative for consumers and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat," he said in a statement on Apple's website.

Analysts said such a move would benefit Apple as the market leader in the digital music marketplace.

In the meantime, her box will go on, with promises of new material and a brand-new fan version splicing in clips submitted from around the world. Sort of takes user-generated content and interactivity to a whole new level. In any case, present for you below.

LAist thinks that January should become Start A New Blog Month and if you've already got a blog that you've turned your back on, January should also be Write Something New on Your Damn Blog Month.

We have a pair of some excellent seats to the Justin Timberlake concert next Tuesday, January 16. Someone who has a blog or a myspace account who has a new post written and who has the LAist button (see it after the jump) on their side bar will get those tickets.

Justin just brought the sexy back to Anaheim last night, tomorrow he's in San Jose, then 1/12 in Sacramento, 1/14 in Phoenix - ok fine Glendale, AZ, and then Tuesday at Staples Center, followed by next Wednesday in Fresno, and next Friday in Vegas.

On Tuesday, a lawyer for the Universal Music Publishing Group, a catalog owner and administrator, posted the text of a cease-and-desist letter in the comments section of Stereogum.com, a Web site carrying the video. It contended that Bank of America had violated Universal's copyright of the U2 song.

The two employees featured in the video were the guitarist, Jim Debois, a consumer market executive for Manhattan, and the singer, Ethan Chandler, a Manhattan banking center manager, who provoked much of the ridicule with his earnest interpretation and also for straying a bit far from U2's lyrics with lines like "Integration has never had us feeling so good/and we'll make lots of money."

Mr. Chandler, who has independently released an album and is working on another, said he was asked to write and perform the song for an August meeting of credit card division executives at MBNA headquarters in Wilmington, Del.

He said he was surprised to learn about the cease-and-desist letter, stressing that his performance was meant for an internal audience. "There was an approved list of songs to use," he said, "and as far I knew, that was an approved song."

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, is seen as part of a strategy by Universal to test provisions of a federal law that provides a "safe harbor" to Internet companies that follow certain procedures to filter out copyrighted works. The law requires sites to remove such content after being notified by the copyright holder.

If Universal can win in court, it is likely to gain leverage in negotiating licensing terms with user-driven services - just at the moment that those services are attracting deep-pocketed partners.

Earlier this year, Universal's chief executive, Doug Morris, publicly identified the YouTube video-sharing site and MySpace as copyright infringers. Universal successfully negotiated to take a stake in YouTube shortly before it was sold to Google for $1.65 billion, according to executives briefed on the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity. But licensing talks with MySpace recently reached an impasse.

MySpace said in a statement yesterday that it complied with the requirements of federal law. The company said it had kept Universal, a unit of Vivendi, "closely apprised of our industry-leading efforts to protect creators’ rights, and it's unfortunate they decided to file this unnecessary and meritless litigation."

"Okay, I usually keep quiet on topics like this but I feel I need to stand up for my friend, Faith. She was just being honest and emotional like every other person sitting at home with an opinion. These awards shows are SO political and we all get fed up with them. We all work very hard and have for many years so to see someone come in and win Female Vocalist that has been here for a VERY short time, is a little disheartening."

I made by bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

No, not a buttock-related social network, but a blend of MySpace and YouTube aimed at hip-hop fans, at least according to a paper copy of Billboard Magazine. Designed for the "urban youth" demographic, California-based CrackSpace will offer exclusive videos and tracks from artists like Ludacris, T.I., Diddy, Akon, Ghostface, Lloyd Banks, Hi-Tek, Jim Jones and Foxy Brown. They’re also throwing in a MySpace-style social network, a YouTube-inspired video sharing service, a download store and the option to sell your own videos, music, wallpapers and ringtones. The site launches officially on November 1st, but they pre-announced it today and most of the functionality seems to be there already.

Celebrities obviously have a love/hate relationship with media outlets. They certainly love the ability to promote themselves and their latest projects, but of course, many claim they also hate the attention given to their "personal" lives. In the old days, celebs only had to worry about tv cameras and talboid rags. In the new millenium blogs are evolving into a prime source for the public's seemingly unending appetite for all things celebrity. It's obvious that even Grammy winner John Mayer is tuning in to "new media."

On his blog, JM has a little fun mimicking our pals at Perez Hilton and Pink Is The New Blog. JM co-opts their generally hilarious style of adding commentary to photos and pokes a little fun at being a celebrity and at us celebrity watchers. And it seems John reads TMZ as well! He's got his own "JMZ.com " entries that look an awful lot like a really cool site we all know and love. It's good to see John has a sense of humor and can make fun of not only us, but himself. Just one thing missing ... no Jessica Simpson posts?

The thing too is, you can sometimes trick zombies into thinking that you're one of them. If you walk through a whole pack of zombies, and you're all like "bbbuuuurrrrgggghhhhh", like they are, there's a chance they won't notice you're even there. But as soon as you start talking, or showing basic cognitive reason, zombies are all over you.

Obviously the devil is in the details. We dont know what the percentages are. We dont know how capable a salesforce Youtube has. We dont know what percentage of revenue their streaming costs take up (remember, streaming costs per bit dont go down as volume goes up, they go up at very high volume levels) and we dont know just how diligent they are going to have to be for Warner MG to recognize WMG copyrights.

Think about it. In order for them to recognize a copyright violation in the bar mitvah tape, they first have to identify any and all songs, then they have apply that to a list of WMG songs. That aint going to be cheap to do.

Here's what YouTube and Warner have been willing to say: Warner will let YouTube show "thousands" of its artists videos, and will also allow YouTube to play user-created clips that incorporate Warner music--such as "Christine" lip-syncing in her bedroom to Madonna's "Material Girl." In exchange, Warner will get a cut of any advertising revenue that YouTube makes while showing said video. YouTube also promises to implement a filtering technology by the end of 2006 that keeps approved content on the site and banishes unapproved clips.

YouTube wouldn't discuss its technical plans (or anything else beyond a press release issued Monday morning), but Alex Zubillaga, who heads up Warner's digital division, confirmed that the company plans to implement a "fingerprinting" system that automatically identifies content and matches it to a master list that Warner will help create. If Warner wants to let someone use Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven," it will stay on the site; if not, YouTube will take it off.

On Wednesday, Universal Music Group Chairman Doug Morris took a swipe at social networking, arguing that the sites assist users in violating copyrights of music videos.

"We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars," Morris said. "How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly."

Representatives of YouTube declined to comment on Morris' remarks, which were made during a Merrill Lynch Media and Entertainment Conference in Pasadena, Calif.

Some of the most popular postings are copyrighted music videos that include Universal Music artists, such as Mariah Carey and the Black Eyed Peas. Other sites, such as Yahoo and AOL, also offer videos but pay Universal Music each time a video is viewed.

Universal Music insiders said the four major music companies — Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group — are in talks with YouTube to adopt screening software that would keep unauthorized videos off the sites.

Just 19 years old when he became a viral video sensation, Brolsma waited months to tell his mother what was going on. Suzanne Brolsma learned of her son's new fame when she came home from work one afternoon to find the phone ringing and her answering machine full of messages from members of the press. The media attention was overwhelming and despite the immense popularity of the video, the Brolsma family never made a cent from Gary's fame. Like many lower-income American families, the Brolsmas struggle daily to make ends meet.

But while Brolsma may have found the press attention daunting, it was the enthusiasm, encouragement and affection of his fellow Internet users that inspired him to return with a new video. "I heard from so many people asking when I would do another video," says Brolsma. "If people can watch this new video, enjoy it and get a laugh out of it, then I'm happy with that."

Find Others Like Your Badass Self

Once your page is up, the MOG brain can automatically show you other moggers with a taste in music that most resembles yours. You can even narrow your search criteria and ask, for example, to only see moggers most like you who live near you. Your MOG page is just a few steps away.

It's hard to choose the most unbelievable or bizarre moment for me during the past two months of following the Dixie Chicks.

Before I started doing this, I would have thought that the very act of spending time with the most successful female band in history would be the most surreal.

But I had no idea I would soon be asked by Marc Anthony to move out of the way for J. Lo at a party also attended by Diddy, Ann Coulter, Paul Simon, and Bill O'Reilly.

Another surreal moment is when I saw myself for a split second on Howard TV (when the Chicks appeared on the Howard Stern show). Or, perhaps, when friends I haven't spoken to since college contacted me after they swore they saw "someone who looked just like me" on Howard TV.

But Sony will also actively encourage fan sites and bloggers--who are mostly used to receiving cease-and-desist letters from studios--to link to the material. Links for adding Musicbox content are displayed on the site. Individuals thus could create sites focused around certain artists by linking to video channels on the Musicbox site dedicated to them, or link to several channels which, in the aggregate, comprise the most mawkish artists (in the view of the blogger) that Sony has to offer.

The turnabout largely comes amid a revamp of the company being conducted by CEO Howard Stringer. It is also taking place because the videos, in Flash, can't be pirated, at least not easily.

Blog Radio kicks off Monday, May 29 on the Left of Center channel, which plays college, indie and alternative rock music. Weeknights at 10 Eastern, a blogger will host the new show and showcase his or her favorite music and provide insights into the indie rock music scene.

"In 2006, the new horizon for music is the Internet. And I don't mean MP3 piracy, which is old news by now. It's taken a long time to arrive, but I feel the true Internet music revolution is finally upon us. I'm talking about musicians having the ability to reach out to their fans and make music in close to real time, in their own back room, while never having to put themselves in hock to large corporations."

"I believe we're about to enter a fascinating new era for musicians and music fans, and I want a front row seat. So I’m putting my enterpreneurial activities behind me, and going back on the road. This is just the first step - before embarking on new songs I'm feeling a strong need to reconnect with my original music and my core fans, who (unbelievably!) have never stopped arguing about my songs and lyrics, even with the total dearth of fresh material. Certain music has the ability to become part of the fabric of your life, and it’s something you never outgrow. This tour will be a way for me, as well as the audiences, to rekindle the old excitement. Getting road-ready is a complicated process, but it's fun as hell. I'll be recording some of the process here on my blog. Hope you enjoy it!"

That initial title will feature a mix of tracks by major-label, independent-label and unsigned acts, including Weezer, the All-American Rejects, Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, AFI, Against Me, Plain White T's, New Year's Day and Hollywood Undead.

The latter act, a Los Angeles rock/rap act, is MySpace's first signing. The group will issue its own album on the label early in the second quarter of 2006.

MySpace Records should find an immediate audience in users of the Web site that spawned it. MySpace, founded as an online community where members could share their likes and dislikes, has become a heavily trafficked home for musicians and music fans of all stripes.

Everyone from Disney to Newsweek to National Public Radio is now offering podcasts, and Apple Computer, Inc. last month made it a whole lot easier to find them and download them to iPods.

While profits remain elusive, there's a bigger prize out there the company that manages to become the go-to Web site for podcasts could gain enough leverage to strike favorable deals with proven content providers, and generate cash by charging for subscriptions and advertising.

She is eager for such a deal. Without one, KCRW is prevented from recording podcasts for shows that include music. That means fans of the popular "Morning Becomes Eclectic" must wait until music rights are obtained.

"The explosion for podcasting hasn't happened yet," said Seymour. "It takes off the second that someone gets the music rights."