(UPDATE 4) I got up at 5AM EST to check out Universal and Sony's new music video mega-site VEVO and write about it, but...
While the design and interface is sleek, and it features the requisite channels, social networking and saveable video playlists, for now at least, it's plagued by painfully slow loads and time outs.
It's a disappointing launch for a high profile launch backed by the two largest label groups, tens of millions of dollars from Abu Dhabi and tech from Google and YouTube. As of a 3AM tweet, they are working on it:
launch overload!
The @VEVO team is working on it... stand by
8 AM: Still problems. Even new user sign up times out, for example. Things are getting a bit better, but its early morning in the East; so most users are just getting up. No Twitter updates for 5 hours on all the problems. Overall, not good.
10:25 AM: Load problems persist. New user sign-up still times out No update from the VEVO team.
12:45: This tweet from VEVO just came across:
"The traffic to VEVO.com has exceeded our expectations by several orders of magnitude! Bear with us as we try to smooth everything out."
4:45PM: It seems to be getting a little better, but problems persist.
