Music Videos on Demand
By Jessica Scott
Let me just start by saying, I love launch.com. I really do. You
see I love music, and I also love music videos, so you can imagine
that the thought of a site with an extremely varied collection of
thousands of music videos might make someone like me drool.
The videos on Launch range from popular to obscure, from lo-fi indie
rock to hip-hop to dance to heavy metal. They've definitely got something
for everyone. Ok, so they don't have every music video ever made,
but their ever-growing collection is by far the most comprehensive
on the Internet.
Being a music fiend, I watched a lot of MTV in high school (well,
technically I watched a lot of M2, MTV's sister station, since MTV
doesn't actually play videos anymore). What I hated about MTV was
never knowing when the videos I wanted to see were going to be on,
and having to sit through a bunch of crappy videos to see the one
or two good ones. Additionally, my musical tastes have always tended
to be on the fringe, I was never interested much in pop music, so
the videos I was interested in were only played on rare occasions,
while the likes of Britney Spears and her teeny-bopper co-horts were
played over and over again. That's why I love the idea of video on
demand. I can watch only the videos I want, when I want to.
Sure, there are downsides to watching music videos on the Internet.
The quality, obviously, isn't as good. And if you don't have a great
bandwidth, the quality is going to be even worse, and it could take
a long time to download. The person that Launch is suited best for
at this moment in time is the college student - someone with high
bandwidth internet access, but not necessarily access to cable television.
Although the quality is not as good as it would be on cable television,
launch does have one up on cable: it's completely free.
Of course, Launch isn't the only site to try this idea of video on
demand. But in my opinion, it's executed it the best. There is a massive
selection to choose from, and the site is easy to navigate. There
are different speeds to choose from, as well different formats. Launch
is easily a site that many visitors will return to.