The next big thing for the consumer web could come from something you might not guess. According to VentureBeat, services like RapGenius ^[1] and TuneWiki ^[2] are spearheading a new way of publishing and making money from song lyrics. Apparently, they’re one of the most popular things people search for on the Web.

In fact, a remarkable two percent of all Google search queries ^[3] are for lyrics. On Bing, it’s at seven percent. ^[4] After ‘Facebook,’ the term ‘lyrics’ is the most common search term on Google ^[5] in the US.

In discussing how bad the existing lyrics services are, RapGenuis Co-Founder Tom Lehman told VentureBeat, “Rather than pummeling users with ringtone ads, which are scams anyway, why not take a longer-term approach?” he asks, referring to monetization strategies based on stirring peoples’ passions about artists and their music.

Yet the existing players still manage to command incredibly high traffic, in spite of their outdated used of banner ads, popups and poorly conceived user experiences. The most popular is MetroLyrics, which sees over 31 million monthly unique visitors according to Quantcast ^[6] and Alexa ^[7] estimates.

The new services are changing how people interact with lyrics. For example, RapGenius’s product seeks to build knowledge and community through user-populated, highly detailed in-line explanations of lyrics, especially rap and hip-hop lyrics, which often have insider references and other deep meanings that are seldom understood on the first listen.

Read more at VentureBeat ^[8].