YouTube launched a new set of analytics called Music Insights specifically for musicians. The tool currently offers fan data to the top 10,000 musicians on YouTube, but it will expand the service in the future. The participating artists can use Music Insights to view engagement information, including their most popular songs and the locations where they have the largest number of fans. It also shares aggregated view counts, which include fan-uploaded videos using that artist’s songs as well as views of videos on the performer’s own channel.
Music Insights is part of the YouTube For Artists program. Google and its competitors (see Pandora, Apple) have been beefing up their analytics offerings in an effort to build better ties with the music community. YouTube still holds the crown for online video, but Tidal and Spotify have incorporated video content into their services, and it could be facing a loss of talent to the windowed platform available on Vessel. Depending on how the formal launch of Music Key goes in the fall, YouTube may find itself in a less secure position in the industry pecking order by the end of the year.