Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Yahoo Signs Licensing Deal With Sony BMG

by Mark Walsh
Yahoo has signed a broad new licensing agreement with Sony BMG that allows consumers to add music and video content from the label and its artists to user-generated creations. The agreement marks the first time Yahoo has licensed content from a major record label in connection with user-generated videos. Sony BMG signed a similar licensing deal with Google last year and another struck last month with social networking site MySpace

Bravo Sony
Sony gets it. By moving ad budgets to initiatives more like this one, they can lower their ad costs whilst still getting their music out there and making their user base happy.
An ad is only useful to one party- the advertiser. They hit eyeballs, get frequency, they are performing a typical marketing task.
However typical is the problem. To make both advertiser and consumer happy, you give the consumer something they can use and get value from. If an individual can insert their favourite song into their UGC, the song gets spread through their networks and breaks through the immense clutter. I'm sure, if the user doesn't have Kazaa, it will also lead to purchase!

My song of the day, dedicated to Sondak for giving me the 411


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