The Echo Nest Continues Global Expansion in Japan with NTT Plala Inc.

SOMERVILLE, Mass., Feb. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Echo Nest, the world's leading music intelligence company, continues its global expansion with NTT Plala Inc., one of Japan's most forward thinking Internet service providers, offering a suite of broadband entertainment services. NTT Plala Inc. represents The Echo Nest's largest customer in Japan, the world's second biggest music market, and home to the upcoming, first-ever Music Hack Day Tokyo, sponsored by The Echo Nest.

NTT Plala's "Hikari-TV," the commercially successful broadband content distribution service delivering entertainment via IPv6, offering on-demand video, IP broadcast, and karaoke alongside this renewed music service, will play radio stations and playlists powered by The Echo Nest. These radio stations and playlists, for mobile devices and set-top boxes in the home, adapt to listeners' unique tastes using The Echo Nest's Taste Profile technology. Taste Profiles are persistent, anonymized records of what music people listen to (likes, dislikes, plays, skips, etc.) and how they listen (adventurousness, diversity, frequency, and more), and are used to personalize stations and playlists for each user.

"We're excited to help NTT Plala Inc. deliver more personalized and engaging music experiences to hundreds of thousands of Japanese households," said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. "This partnership further demonstrates The Echo Nest's unique ability to help music services understand the world of music and culture, and deliver personalized music experiences on a global scale with a deeply localized focus."

About The Echo Nest:
The Echo Nest is the industry's leading music intelligence company, powering the future of music. Through its music intelligence platform, The Echo Nest gives customers the deepest understanding of music content, music culture and music fans, helping customers develop and commercialize the most personalized, social, engaging and profitable music experiences.

The Echo Nest's customer base reaches over 100 million music fans every month, and over 440 applications have been built on The Echo Nest's music intelligence platform.

Headquartered in Somerville, MA, The Echo Nest was co-founded by two MIT PhDs. Investors include Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and three co-founders of the MIT Media Lab. For more information, please visit http://echonest.com/.

SOURCE The Echo Nest