Music Business

Vube: So How Does A Cover Music Video Site Hit The Top 100 Websites In A Single Year? [Updated]

Vube-logoVube.com seems a bit too good to be true. It's a user-generated music video site that features cover songs and monthly cash prizes for those who get the most likes. Vube hit the top 100 global web sites on Alexa in its first year which is quite an accomplishment. Yet it hasn't appeared in any major tech blog nor had I heard about it till this time. I spoke with two co-founders and was very interested in what they had to say. However it left me puzzled about their backstory and searching on the web cast a shadow on the whole enterprise. [please see update at end of post]

One way companies deal with a troubled past is to not discuss it. That works surprisingly well sometimes even in the age of the internet. For example, Russell Simmons, who has had some huge music industry successes also has a long list of failed projects especially in the digital space. Most people don't know that cause those projects get shut down quietly and I was the only person who seemed to write about those failures on a regular basis in the previous decade.

I've given up the role I played in hip hop media. I'm no longer interested in being a watchdog. Unfortunately when a situation like that of Vube presents itself I'm stuck in that position again.

What Is Vube?

Vube itself seems like a good site for those involved. People are getting views and when I spoke with co-founders Scott Perkins and Shawn Boday they portrayed a rich global community of musicians who were getting way more attention than they could get on YouTube.

For some individuals that's said to have already helped them on a local level to get gigs and kickstarted the beginning of careers that just weren't going anywhere previously. However, other than a tweet by one musician, I haven't seen any real evidence of that though it may well be true.

The company was formed in January 2013 and then the site itself went live in April 2013. They got to a top 100 global position on Alexa in a year or less.

Here are some Vube stats I was given by a publicist. Vube has:

nearly 2 million registered users;

over 20 million visitors per day;

and gives away over $55,000 a month.

The site is described in the email I received as a "viral video engine" which is driven by a "global marketing initiative with advertising in hundreds of countries."

But there are also a handful of web discussions making claims about adware (malware delivered through advertising) and a past in the webcam porn industry.

So What's Really Going On With Vube.com

I didn't raise the webcam porn question in the interview because I'd only seen a passing reference at that point and I hadn't yet figured out the connections to Accretive Technology Group. At that point adware seemed to be the main point of discussion.

I asked the Vube co-founders a fairly general question about comments I'd seen on the web referencing adware and popup ads.

They told me that there had been an adware problem but that had come from a third party in September and had been quashed. And it's true that a lot of what I'm finding on the web clusters around that time.

They also mentioned that all their advertising focused on the artists and that seemed to be the primary way they were driving traffic.

Given that I hadn't dug very deeply, this response seemed reasonable. But because some of the answers hadn't been clear and I hadn't asked the right questions, apparently, I began digging on the web after the interview and found a backstory that they would have been smart to address on their own.

Here's Where Vube Dropped The Ball

Here's the thing. I'm not a journalist or an investigative reporter. The ROI on that kind of work for me is negligible. In fact, it requires so much work that it would push my per-post rates down into the "I might as well start panhandling cause that's a better business model" territory.

And the other thing is that people mostly don't care about the truth. They just want things they can gossip about that confirms their beliefs about the world. That deeply saddens me but I've come to accept it.

So I'm not trying to expose anything here, I'm just trying to sort out the details of something I'd rather leave behind. Perhaps some of this will be useful to others who will take it further.

My interview with the Vube guys was very awkward. It was one of those rare cases where they sat and waited for questions. I've had that happen only 2 or 3 times before in the last 3 or so years.

Typically startup founders have an agenda and they aren't going to wait for my questions to decide what's said though it's almost always done in a very positive way that leads to a productive exchange. This was not that productive an exchange though if I had the right questions they seemed open to giving reasonable straightforward answers.

But they should have told me more. For example, I asked where the $50k+ a month in prizes came from.

I was told they were "internally funded" and that's all they said. That's fine and I didn't push on that because companies that haven't gotten documented funding from outside sources often keep quiet about the details. That's perfectly appropriate.

But that statement didn't match the picture I was erroneously drawing. By the end of the interview I thought I was talking to two coders who were articulate but didn't normally volunteer information because of their personalities and focus on product development.

If it was just two guys in Austin building product that would explain a lot as to why the interview was so awkward. But it left a gap in their backstory. How did they come up with that money?

There's not much about the two individuals Scott Perkins and Shawn Boday except for limited Vube coverage and people talking shit about them online.

Now talking shit online is easy. And people get things wrong all the time and they'll go on and on about their wrong ideas as if it they were arguing over some contentious sports figure while out drinking.

But there is a history here which looks bad as currently presented especially when these guys did not volunteer any information about who they were or their business past. At this point I can't say if they didn't want to talk about it because they mostly just answered my questions.

But if you're interested in digging in, here's a selection of relevant links. I'll let you figure out the connections if you wish:

Webutation: Vube

Who is the owner of Vube.com?

Flying Croc Promotes Its Webcam Sites with Even More Lies and Messenger Spamming

There Were Better Ways For Vube To Handle This

Honestly, if these guys had proactively addressed their history, who they are and what they're doing, I might have written a very different post.

Instead I assume they didn't want any of the backstory to come to light because they do not present much at all about themselves on the web. To be honest, I only encounter such low profiles from people who:

a. – don't know what they're doing,

b. – have something to hide.

These guys know what they're doing. That part is clear.

And that's where I'm going to leave it.

I don't want to investigate further. I don't want to talk to these guys again. And I certainly don't want their publicist trying to put pressure on me after reading this post.

Update: What I Should Have Done Differently

I'm not changing anything in the above post and after this closing update I won't be discussing this issue anymore.

But here's what I should have done. When I got the stats, which are the reason I wrote about them, I should have investigated further than I did.

When I get big numbers I try to see if there's anything that suggests some sort of purchased likes or similar tactics. I didn't see that with Vube. But when I checked them out on Google Trends I saw a growth in searches which was a good sign.

But I didn't notice that the top area for search was Pakistan. Of course, they claim India as their top audience so that may explain that part. They're not hiding that India is their top market.

However, I did find an initial reference to popup ads and adware. Instead of digging as deep as I could before the interview, I simply used it as the basis for a question which they seemed to answer adequately at the time but the oddness of the interview caused me to dig further.

When I say oddness, it's not anything you would get without hearing audio and I just took notes as do many journalists though I'm just a blogger.

What I found was troubling and made me realize that I should take things further before interviews.

In this case, I would have canceled the interview and not written about the company if I had done so.

Generally speaking, if a company requests coverage and I can tell I'm going to trash them, I mostly pass on the coverage. It just seems the fair thing to do if they're a startup especially since, statistically speaking, they're likely to die anyway.

In the case of a company like Beats, they're fair game due to their status and doubly so because they introduced themselves with lies and people were giving them a pass.

But in this case, I should have done what I did when I first covered Alex Day. I looked thoroughly at everything I could find online to verify his seemingly outrageous numbers. But there was nothing to disconfirm what he was saying plus there was plenty of evidence to back him up.

Given the murkiness I found with Vube, I would have just passed at that point because, as I point out, I'm no longer interested in investigative blogging.

There are just too many solid people and good companies to cover and I pass on some of them for reasons that are far less contentious.

And if they are what they present themselves to be with no troubling past history to undermine them, then a company like Vube should not only prove me wrong in the long haul but make coverage irrelevant.

Some of the best companies that were directly in touch with their user or customer base quietly grew huge and all the press had to follow,

If Vube is who they say they are and if I'm totally wrong here, that will be proven in the long run. Being on Hypebot will not make or save your company. Neither will being on TechCrunch though it will certainly give you a bigger look.

So I shouldn't have covered Vube and I now know when people bring me big numbers that I should investigate further before agreeing to cover them. It's in everyone's best interests.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) posts music crowdfunding news @CrowdfundingM. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

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14 Comments

  1. The same reason jasmine.com is top 100, everytime you go to a free download site (a la rapidshare, mediafire) to rip free music, a full page popup if their front page with tons if videos appear. Then they put “making $10,000” so far and the videos are unoriginal, so of course the person downloading free music is broke and wants some money and thinks they’re better than the singer on the video. So they browse more videos, which is more traffic, and probably less than one percent of people viewing end up submitting a video. It’s a cheap way to get traffic. The funny thing is a lot of the audio is prerecorded and they make it look live and homemade.
    It’s cheap all around.

  2. Thanks for this. I just got what felt like a harassing phone call from a publicist at Susan Blond that represents these people.
    Anything else you can point me towards would be greatly appreciated.
    You can also write me here:
    clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com
    It’s fine if you or others want to stay anonymous as long as you can point me to things I can check out and document myself.

  3. I feel like I have to give VUBE the benefit of the doubt here. This article seems to be doing quite a bit of assumptions. You even admit yourself that you did not ask the right questions. You were the interviewer, you need to ask the questions that you want answers to. You can’t choose not to ask them and then make negative assumptions as to what you think the answers are. You admit you are not a journalist or investigative reporter, but this came off like a cheap attempt at being that. We also don’t see any actual portion or direct quotes from their interview, how are we to believe anything you are saying is true? You’re withholding too much. To do this properly you should call those founders back and give them the chance to actually answer your questions/negative assumptions. This whole thing is borderline slander. Disappointed in your lack of integrity with this article.

  4. Um, you are sounding extremely paranoid now to all of your readers. The whole point of comments is for people to state their opinions just like you have done above. If someone disagrees with you they are automatically a publicist and have an ulterior motive?! I am not a publicist, nor do I even know the founders of the company. I just didn’t like your “reporting.” You can waste time doing more investigative reporting to see if I am a publicist, but you will come up empty handed…New York City is huge dude….

  5. You insinuated that because the publicist and I are both out of New York we were the same person. And now you are acting as if you did not. Which appears to be your MO – making blind assumptions and passing it off as journalism.
    Didn’t you also say in an earlier comment: “It’s fine if you or others want to stay anonymous as long as you can point me to things I can check out and document myself.”
    And now you say: “At the end of the day anonymous people don’t mean that much to me so I’m not really engaged in a serious discussion with you.”
    Funny, I guess you only enjoy anonymous comments when they help support your opinions.
    To answer your earlier question regarding using quotes versus not, it’s kind of journalism 101 that if it is gonna be something negative, you should use a direct quote from the interviewee to make sure it is not misconstrued based on your negative opinions.
    That’s all, thanks very much Clyde.

  6. Let me get this right, journalist from music tech blog, investigates Vube who are possibly some sort of scam. But rather doing what most journalists do which is think “wow what a story, I must investigate”, ends up apologising for not investigating and then says that he should not have even become involved.
    So you are either being threatened by someone (which I doubt) or you are, sorry to say, a crap journalist.
    Disappointing mate, I dont actually doubt your integrity, I doubt your ability.

  7. You tube never forced my browsers to open a pop up, Vube yes so Vube is bad in any case. Finish.

  8. I just read 1800 words of looping logic that talked itself in circles on the same point about five times over. “I should have done this.” The title of the article is “So How Does a Cover Music Video Site Hit the Top 100 Websites in a Single Year” and not once in this article does the author come close to actually answering it, instead choosing to talk about the interview rather than discussing what was actually said in the interview.

  9. It did get a bit meta!
    Since writing this I’ve been contacted by someone who claims to be an employee in an adult-related company with which they are associated, somebody else with some interesting info which I can’t recall at the moment and I ran into a popup ad for a musical act on Vube while browsing porn.
    So far, except for people like you in the comments, I’m only getting confirmations.
    But I’m done with this topic except for occasional appearances in the comments.
    Not worth my time.

  10. Indeed it’s too good to be true. Indeed it isn’t … for Covers.
    After have seen a couple of videos of me, which were Covers and which were aligned and in good state with Copyright Law, were demoted, I asked reasons to their support.
    Mr. Steve stated that the Copyright is violated.
    I produced all the documentation to demonstrate that everything is following the Copyright Regulations (I contacted SABAM, and all the Publishers, Copyright Holders, in order to get this)
    What I obtained?
    That in several emails I received from Mr. Steve, he is telling me clearly that Vube.com doesn’t accept Covers.
    And, as bad practice with Client-Communication §a skill that it’s quite trivial as far as i see on vubeology), the only one thing he was able to do, is to face me out with their Policies point “E” in which you can think is written they don’t accept Covers.
    NO.
    It’s written they can remove any video for any reasons and they have not to give any explanation for that. Nor responding for any damage occurred to you, if the videos are removed.
    Do you think he posted me anything about their Policies in which it’s stated they don’t accept Cover(s) as he told in the email chain?
    Not at all.
    Is that correct way to manage Clients?
    It’s very arguable
    Is it a good site?
    It’s very arguable, despite the good ideas
    I keep all these emails for any Forensic purpose

  11. Honestly I got several emails from the support of VUBE that are clearly telling “we don’t accept covers”.
    And this is after a Cover Video i produced with a Signer I manage, was deleted after having reached 66 000 views in few days.
    Having asked for clarification, that’s what they told to me.
    I sent to them also this article and a couple of othere similar ones, the answer was the same.

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