It is clear that Google sees value in the music side of YouTube. Besides the crazy number of views that new videos from big-name performers and groups can rack up, the platform is one that an increasing number of people are turning towards to get their musical fix. This is one of the reasons as to why YouTube released a dedicated YouTube Music app which essentially allows offline viewing of YouTube content, as long as it is music-based content. Speaking of which, offline viewing and the YouTube Music app is part of the much larger YouTube Red service which YouTube launched late last year. A service which removes ads, offers the offline viewing and of course, comes bundled with Google Play Music, Google’s paid music streaming subscription service. So whichever way you look at it, Google is certainly upping the musical prowess of YouTube recently.
Adding to its growing musical direction, it has been confirmed today that YouTube has now acquired BandPage. For those unfamiliar with BandPage, this is a startup which is designed to try and facilitate a greater level of public awareness for bands, performers and so on. By creating a page with BandPage, musicians are able to further push their profile across a wide range of third-party services and including the big tier named streaming companies. These profiles are then essentially manageable across all services from the one place, BandPage. Not to mention, BandPage also is able to offer musicians various routes to monetization as well.
In terms of the acquisition, besides the actual purchase, very little is known. The purchase was for an undisclosed amount and it is currently unclear as to how, if at all, the purchase will affect BandPage in its current guise. Although, the Band Page blog page (which announced the purchase) does make it clear that joining the YouTube ranks will be of benefit to the musicians using the service. As BandPage notes, “By joining forces with the team at YouTube, we can help artists reach their fans in more powerful ways than ever before.” However, as BandPage does work with a number of Google’s musical competitors like Deezer and Spotify, it will be interesting to see how the purchase manifests itself going forward.