[Ireland] Its the type of scenario that keeps even the most seasoned entrepreneurs up at night. Your startup toils away for months on a new product or feature and boom a giant like Google comes along and walks all over it.

That appears to be the case for Dublin-based music video site, Muzu TV (see previous TCEU coverage), which today launched its new music video jukebox feature. A sort of Spotify-for-video, its not too dissimilar from Google-owned YouTubes recent disco beta or Music Discovery Project and Playlist Creation Tool to give it its full name.

The Muzu video jukebox offers up a search box in which users can type in an artist or track name, and instantly create music video playlists based on the results. Playlists can be edited and re-ordered in real-time, without interrupting the music, and theres related artist recommendations built-in too, providing an element of discovery.

A side by side comparison with YouTubes disco, shows an almost identical feature-set. Although, in typical Google fashion, YouTubes version is much more minimalistic in design and I actually prefer the look n feel and overall UX of Muzu TVs jukebox.

But at the end of the day, marketing aside, it will probably come down to the content or the size of each sites music video catalogue.

Muzu.TV predominantly targets the UK and Ireland and has around 100,000 videos on the site, although not all of these are music videos but include concert archive footage and interviews etc. The startup also has local deals with all four majors and a whole bunch of Indies, such as Beggars, Domino, PIAS, Cooking Vinyl and Merlin.

Muzu thinks its onto something by avoiding the intrusion of pre-roll advertising. While the site is ad-supported, its leveraging alternative ad formats such as skinning the outside of the video player with branded content, so as to not interrupt the viewing experience.

Source: eu.techcrunch.com