First, that means expanding quality video access and adding advertisers. “If we’re successful at that, then we will want to diversify our business. We will want to build new experiences on top of the experience we started with. We won’t stray from music but it is possible that we’ll do things other than video.”

Vevo relies on hosting and streaming by YouTube, the single largest consumer video streamer. What happened on opening night? “We just got slammed,” Caraeff explained. He said they had as much traffic Tuesday night “as we thought we would have a year from now.” How much? “More than 5 million, less than 10 million. ... In terms of the amount of requests that came in, it significantly exceeded our expectations in the first hour that we went live.” They wound up stripping down Vevo.com to the essentials and rapidly adding hardware and capacity, restoring the video access overnight while building the infrastructure more aggressively than originally planned.  With the mixed start, how does he keep the momentum going?

Caraeff laughed at the question. “We’re just getting started integrating into YouTube. We’re just getting started integrating YouTube into Vevo. We haven’t even ingested and launched the content videos from our partners like EMI, The Orchard, INgrooves, IODA and CBS. We haven’t started to build out the Vevo Network yet, putting Vevo where ever people are online. We haven’t put it on AOL yet, we haven’t put it anywhere else yet other than within YouTube and Vevo. We’re starting to build our audience network. We’re starting to build our sales force (they’ve filled about half of the 35 sales slots so far). We’re starting to bring more content in. We’re starting to create original programming.”

—Vevo Island: Vevo also needs to get past a little confusion over what it is. For instance, YouTube has a Vevo page but that’s not meant to be Vevo on YouTube. Instead, it’s more like being part of the ecosystem. The videos licensed to YouTube by Sony and Universal are being replaced with higher-quality versions from Vevo, says Caraeff and the licensing deal for professionally including is with Vevo, not the labels. Vevo becomes the supplier into its own experience on YouTube. “Vevo controls the branding, the ad sales, the ad inventory, all the audience metrics (comScore, Nielsen, streaming, uniques), all of that rolls up under Vevo. Essentially, it’s Vevo’s island inside of YouTube’s ocean is one way to think about it.”

—Upgrading the neighborhood: Caereff says Vevo won’t touch user-generated video if the licensed video only plays a role. For instance, anyone who shoots video of a Rihanna music video or otherwise records it and uploads it faces replacement with the real thing. But if you upload video of your toddler dancing with John Meyer’s music video in the background, it’s probably safe. If what a user wants to see is the music video itself, then Caereff wants to deliver the highest quality environment to draw users and advertisers. “We’re trying to create that network which delivers the reach and the scale but also is clean and well lit and is something that they’re comfortable with.” AT&T (NYSE: T) was the first advertiser.

—Credibility: Caereff knows that people inside and outside the industry expect Vevo to have plans beyond upgrading music videos and expanding ad revenue. “It’s easy to talk about all the things we’re going to do. It’s hard to actually do anything. All we want to do is execute. Remember, we come from an industry that doesn’t have that operating credibility in terms of building consumer services. We have to establish that credibility … Do one thing right, do one thing well, then you earn the right.”