Gracenote Creates a Music Experience to Match Your Mood

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumer Electronics Show (CES) -- Gracenote® today announced the next generation of its Discover™ music recommendation technology, which will feature the use of sonic attributes such as Mood and Tempo and music descriptors like Genre, Origin, Era and Artist Type, to deliver smarter, more relevant track, artist and album recommendations as well as enable customers to offer personalized, one-touch Music Channels.  The technology will allow music services to deliver a personal music experience for consumers when and where they want it, from mobile phones, tablets and media players to the desktop, connected televisions and other home digital entertainment devices.

Personalized Music Channels

With the average person now listening to 17 to 19 hours of music per week and Cloud-based music services featuring millions of songs, the need for highly targeted music recommendations and channels is evident.  Because music listeners can experience a range of emotions throughout their day, Discover's Music Channels are designed with the ability to match music with a consumer's mood by using Gracenote's sonic attribute technology to extract the "mood profile" of more than 30 million global music tracks.

Gracenote's mood profiles are comprised of more than a hundred mood characteristics, ranging from Sensual to Melancholy to Peaceful to Rowdy.  Music fans can also customize their Mood Channels or further refine them by Genre, Era and other characteristics. For instance, a music fan would be able to request a Rowdy (Mood), Fast (Tempo), 1980s (Era), British (Origin), Punk (Genre) Channel.  

The first partner to implement Gracenote's Music Channels is Omnifone®, the world's leading independent provider of Cloud-based music services, which will use Gracenote Discover to deliver smarter, more relevant song recommendations and mood-based Music Channels across the award winning MusicStation Platform digital music services it provides to consumer electronics vendors, mobile carriers, broadband providers and automotive vendors globally.

"Gracenote Discover guides the consumer through the vast catalogue of repertoire provided by Omnifone's unlimited music services," said Rob Lewis, executive chairman of Omnifone. "Partnering with Gracenote enables us to provide users with relevant and engaging music choices for channel based services and 'You Might Like' recommendations."

Discover Makes Music Personal

Gracenote's Discover is a one-stop resource for Cloud-based music services, app developers and device manufacturers to drive differentiation from competitors and realize new revenue streams through improved listener retention, sales and customer loyalty.  Discover can be quickly and easily integrated within a customer's infrastructure, allowing for fast deployment globally.

"With the dizzying array of choices consumers have to access and listen to music, Cloud services need to understand what their fans really want," said Stephen White, senior vice president of product and content management for Gracenote.  "Recommendations have become a vital tool for promoting content, and Gracenote's Discover offers the most powerful way to provide a personal music experience for the consumer."

Imagery Transforms the Mood-based Music Experience

Imagery is now a "must-have" for music fans to help them search and explore for artists and buy new music. Through an agreement with Getty Images Inc., a leading creator and distributor of digital media, Gracenote will offer users access to a rich bank of diverse photographs and illustrations to further enhance their music experience.  

Gracenote has developed a mechanism to map the creative characteristics of music and visuals to each other to create a unique visual experience – within Music Channels or at the track level - using Getty Images' vast database of creative assets. As a specific music track changes the mood or tempo of the playlist, the images displayed with that song shift to suit the music.  The result for music fans is a more visually appealing experience with vibrant Getty Images that match the mood of their favorite songs. This capability from Gracenote will be available later in 2011.    

Discover at CES 2011

Gracenote will demonstrate Discover and how it works to enhance music recommendations, create personal Music Channels, and deliver images that match the moods of a song at CES 2011 in the Gracenote booth No. 31106  in South Hall 3 of the LVCC.  For more information or to schedule a demo and briefing at the show, please contact Veronica Skelton at 415.342.3435 or [email protected].

About Gracenote

A pioneer in the digital media industry, Gracenote combines information, technology, services and applications to create ingenious entertainment solutions for the global market.  From media management, enrichment and discovery products to content identification technologies, Gracenote allows providers of digital media products and the content community to make their offerings more powerful and intuitive, enabling superior consumer experiences. The company's solutions integrate the broadest, deepest, and highest quality global metadata and enriched content with an infrastructure that services billions of searches a month from thousands of products used by hundreds of millions consumers. Gracenote's customers include the biggest names in the consumer electronics, mobile, automotive, software and Internet industries.  The company's partners in the entertainment community include major music publishers and labels, prominent independents and movie studios.  Gracenote, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, is headquartered in Emeryville, California. www.gracenote.com.

About Getty Images

Getty Images is a leading creator and distributor of still imagery, footage and multimedia products, as well as a recognized provider of other forms of premium digital content, including music. Getty Images serves business customers in more than 100 countries and is the first place creative and media professionals turn to discover, purchase and manage images and other digital content. Its award-winning photographers and imagery help customers produce inspiring work which appears every day in the world's most influential newspapers, magazines, advertising campaigns, films, television programs, books and Web sites. Visit Getty Images at www.gettyimages.com to learn more about how the company is advancing the unique role of digital media in communications and business, and enabling creative ideas to come to life.

About Omnifone

Omnifone is the world's leading independent provider of cloud-based unlimited music services for consumer electronics vendors, ISPs, automotive and mobile companies including the likes of Sony, HP, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, and Hutchison, who are rolling out Omnifone's multi-award winning unlimited music services globally.

MusicStation®, Omnifone's multi-award winning cloud based unlimited music platform, is utilised by partners in 21 countries worldwide, enabling legitimate unlimited music access direct-to-device across a wide range of in-home, in-car, mobile and PC device platforms, tailored specifically to partner requirements.

At CES 2009 Omnifone announced a partnership with Gracenote Inc., winning a 'Best of CES' award for an in-car entertainment system with MusicStation unlimited music service. In 2008 Omnifone won Best Mobile Music Service at the GSMA Global Mobile Awards, Best Mobile Internet Service at the Mobile Industry Awards, the Juniper Research Future Mobile Award's Gold Award for Mobile Music, the Red Herring Global 100 Award and in 2007 the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) Music Service Meffy. The company is based at Island Studios, London with regional HQs in Asia Pacific. www.omnifone.com.

Gracenote is a registered trademark of Gracenote, Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Gracenote