Vevo, the company behind many of the music videos you see on YouTube, is shutting down its own website and mobile apps. But the company says it will retain its Portland engineering office that opened three years ago.

Music fans are accustomed to being able to call up just about whatever song they want on YouTube. Often, those videos come from Vevo - a service jointly owned by top music labels and by Google, YouTube's parent company.

Vevo has been pushing its own website and apps as a YouTube competitor, and engineers in the Portland office have been adding features. Apparently, though, Vevo has concluded it's no longer worth struggling against YouTube's hegemony.

Vevo announced Thursday that it "will phase out elements of our owned and operated platforms." The company said it will continue to sell advertising for Vevo videos appearing on other services.

"Vevo will continue to have an engineering office is Portland," the company said in a separate statement.

Vevo, which had 14 people working in Portland last summer, said "there was a small impact to staffing" to its product and engineering operations in both its Portland and San Francisco office.

"Going forward," the company said, "Vevo's Product & Engineering teams will focus on creating tools and product experiences that can drive growth in views and monetization across partner platforms."

Going forward, the company said, its product and engineering teams "will focus on creating tools and product experiences that can drive growth in views and monetization across partner platforms."

Former Intel executive Erik Huggers, who had been Vevo's chief executive for nearly three years, left the company last month, according to his LinkedIn profile.

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699