Gracenote Reaches Global Media Database Milestone With 200 Billion Queries

EMERYVILLE, Calif., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Demonstrating its success and global leadership in the digital media industry, Gracenote® today announced its Global Media Database processed its 200 billionth query and one billionth submission this month. With more than 250 million users in more than 200 countries and territories powering more than 2,000 applications, Gracenote's digital entertainment solutions have become the essential ingredient for its digital media customers who want to arm consumers with the control needed to take their entertainment experiences to the next level.

Queries to the Gracenote database span a wide variety of services -- CD and DVD recognition, music waveform recognition (or fingerprinting), music and video search, and music recommendations – used by devices and applications spanning mobile phones, cars, home entertainment systems, PC applications and web sites.  Gracenote currently averages 4.5 billion queries per month, two billion of which are waveform.  The 200 billionth query was for "Killers" a newly released DVD, and the billionth submission was an album called "My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky" by American post-punk band Swans.

"There is no doubt that the demand for and consumption of digital entertainment is at an all-time high, with the globalization of content and the increasing introduction of new devices," said Craig Palmer, Gracenote president. "The sheer number of queries we are processing proves that our continuous innovation, technologies and strategic partnerships make us uniquely positioned in the marketplace.  We continue to make products more powerful and intuitive, substantially enrich content, drive and accelerate commerce opportunities and provide a unified entertainment experience across devices as the drive for any time, anywhere digital entertainment continues to skyrocket."

Digital delivery of content has made its way into every entertainment channel – home, mobile, desktop, automotive – and Gracenote's Global Media Database and proven products and services have become ubiquitous across the digital media industry.  With digital music sales projected to reach $3.4 billion in revenues by 2014 and digital video downloads rising an impressive 23 percent in the past year (Forrester Research, July 2010), Gracenote's media identification, discovery and management solutions are poised to serve the increasing consumer demands for anywhere, anytime digital content. With eight million CDs, 100 million music tracks, and rich metadata for more than 400,000 DVDs and more than 300,000 unique video works, Gracenote's database provides the broadest, deepest and highest quality digital content information in the world and is used by the biggest brands in digital media.

Gracenote technology currently powers many major ' software and Internet media applications, as well as every major automotive OEM and is in more than 17 million car audio units around the globe. Gracenote is also currently the most comprehensive provider of mobile entertainment solutions and powers several brand name consumer electronics products for the home.  Popular products include the award-winning MusicID®, which has become the standard solution for music identification, to MediaVOCS®, which allows for voice-controlled media navigation and playlisting, to VideoID™ DVD, which is setting the standard in video identification and discovery.  

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.

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

SOURCE Gracenote