Universal Buys Into Loud.com
Universal Music Group has announced an investment in Loud.com, a moderately popular online hip-hop community. New York-based Loud.com, a subsidiary of Loud Records and SRC Entertainment, is described as an online community, competition, A&R site and marketing company by its founders, which is quite broad by any measure, but one that Universal somehow found appealing.
Vibrant online communities are the new frontier of “street marketing” and Universal’s foray into Loud.com gives them a decent platform to promote their well-known and developing rap artists. “Universal’s strategy is to become actively involved in all areas of media where our artists and our music are present,” revealed Nick Henny, Vice Chairman and CFO at Universal in a prepared statement.
The Future: Will other labels bite? Investing in site content concepts was the big thing during the Web’s go-go days, but does the strategy have any traction as online users go beyond “Web 2.0”? We’re bullish on music content plays that are able to target a complete genre vertical, and delivers quality original programming (…no kidding. &mdashEd.), but it seems Universal could have done better with a more substantial online property.
