Will Smith And Others Invest About $2 Million In Music Video Startup PluggedIn

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Rafat Ali

paidContent.org
Wednesday, April 16, 2008; 1:07 AM

A new music video destination is launching tonight, and yes, another one. PluggedIn, a new site based in Santa Monica, is launching with about $2 million in venture funding from Will Smith's entertainment company, Overbrook Entertainment and others, CEO Jeff Somers told me today. The company says it has deals with Universal Music Group, EMI and SonyBMG, and will launch with about 10,000 HD and broadcast quality videos. The video is being delivered by Move Networks, which is the high-def video tech company that just announced its own$46 million round. PluggedIn has hopes of being the destination site of music videos (licensed and third party from around the Web), with artist profiles and community built around it.

The company's team includes Brett O'Brien, founder of Xdrive, which was sold to *AOL* in 2005; Kevin Welk, CEO of Vanguard and Sugar Hill Records; Somers, former executive with *Amazon* and Zillow, is the new company's CEO; and others.

Of course there is tons of competition: MySpace Music is a big music video destination, and so is the once music video overlord Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music. MTV.com is a big one too. Most of them will add HD video, if they don't already have them (all it takes is a license from Move Networks, or other competitors). So not exactly sure what the unique selling point of the new destination like PluggedIn is, besides some interesting social media tools layered on.

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