Music video website VEVO, a joint venture between three major record labels and YouTube, is looking to expand its reach beyond Lady Gaga and other established singers with a new music channel dedicated to discovering and showcasing emerging artists.
As you can see from the screenshot above, the new channel, officially dubbed "The Next Wave presented by Schick Hydro," is essentially a showcase for upcoming artists.
The content of the channel is limited, however -- only artists that are part of major or independent labels affiliated with Vevo can be showcased. In essence, these artists have already been discovered, but haven't become breakout sensations like Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift. We'd love to see a system where Vevo users choose their favorites and elevate them to fame, American Idol style.
Vevo has been making big waves of its own in the web video arena -- one in four people who watched web video last month saw a Vevo video, but it relies heavily on a few star artists for its traffic, primarily Gaga.
The Next Wave is a good start to diversifying its video base, but we hope we'll see more social elements for discovering artist out of the joint venture soon.