YouTube Opens Up Pandora's Box -- New Online Music Service, PLUS Videos

YouTube just quietly launched a major shot across the bow to Pandora and other online radio services -- it is called YouTube Music Discovery and, for now, it is buried on YouTube's "TestTube" section of its site (which is YouTube's equivalent to Google Labs). Just like Pandora, YouTube Music Discovery (YMD) enables you to pick an artist -- press the "Disco!" button -- and automatically generate a play-list featuring your selected artist and other "similar" artists via its music discovery engine.

But, here's the cool thing -- YMD does not just generate a playlist of songs -- it generates a playlist of music videos (so that you can both watch and listen if you so choose). So, YMD really features a media discovery engine. And, YouTube's partnership with new online music video service Vevo makes this possible (at least for some of the served up videos, since the Vevo logo is prominently displayed in the lower right-hand side of the video).

YMD is free, of course. But, just like Pandora's free service, YMD serves up advertising. When I selected Coldplay and pressed the "Disco!" button, my generated playlist included 3 Coldplay videos in the first 5 videos on the playlist, and I saw my first 15 second ad after those 5 videos.

Should Pandora and other similar online music services be worried?

Absolutely. YouTube's new YMD service is now buried. But, you can bet this won't be for long. And, when YouTube talks, people listen ...