Actor Will Smith--or rather, his entertainment company, Overbrook Entertainment--is one of the investors behind a $2 million funding round for PluggedIn Media, a new site for watching high-definition and broadcast-quality music videos online, PaidContent.org reported Tuesday evening.
Who would've thought this guy would go on to become a Web 2.0 investor? Carlton Banks would be proud.
(Credit: NBC)PluggedIn (wonder how much they paid for that domain?) reportedly has about 10,000 music videos in its catalog, thanks to contracts with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, and Universal Music Group. The videos are accompanied by artist profiles and some community features.
The site is powered by Move Networks, the high-definition content delivery network that pulled in $46 million earlier this week from Benchmark Capital, Cisco Systems, Comcast, and a number of others. The company already handles video delivery for ESPN, ABC, Discovery, and Fox.
The "involvement" of Will Smith, however, is likely to be what comes to mind with PluggedIn. In addition to tearing up the box office over the past decade and a half with everything from Men In Black to I Am Legend, Smith also has an impressive number of hit rap singles under his belt, which makes him slightly more legit than rapper-turned-DanceJam-executive M.C. Hammer.
That, unfortunately, doesn't change one big problem I see with PluggedIn. Quality specifications aside, I already have a hub for watching music videos online. It's called YouTube. MySpaceTV and MTV.com are also big players in the space.
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