The Music Television Network (MTV) launched a new website yesterday, www.mtvmusic.com (in beta version).  Is this website suppose to play full length videos, free of advertisements?  Yes, for now at least.  Users may embed and send the video’s URL to their friends as well.

Instead of airing music videos, MTV currently plays re-runs of “RW/RR Challenge: The Island” and “Paris Hilton’s New BFF“. With the launch of MTV Music, 16,000 archived videos will now be offered to music fanatics.  Does this mean that MTV will begin to run more reality shows?  I hope not.

I suspect that this may be another option for YouTube internet users to obtain access to music videos via the world wide web.  If I were MTV, I would compete with YouTube as well, considering that the music channel was the first kid to play music videos on television.  YouTube has been quite a hit with internet users, from co-hosting live Presidential Debates with CNN to battling piracy issues with MTV’s parent company, Viacom.

Check out Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” below.

The same video on YouTube was disabled for embedding on Michael Jackson’s official YouTube page.

MTV has certainly come along way from classics like “Thriller” and “Like A Virgin“.  Consequently, as time changes, technology and demographic lifestyles change as well.  The internet is an essential part of our everyday lives.  Desperate times call for desperate actions, as we are now given an alternative option to view music videos from MTV.  Yes, MTV is (finally) playing music videos!

Music Video/Picture Source: mtvmusic