MusicMatch Inc. Tuesday released its next-generation software, featuring a community-based
music matching engine.
The new service is based on MusicMatch’s proprietary matching engine and play
records voluntarily uploaded by the MusicMatch user community. All logs are
uploaded by MusicMatch Jukebox users who have chosen to “opt in” to the
personalization service.
The MusicMatch matching engine analyzes
relationships between these play records to provide MusicMatch Jukebox users
with recommendations for new music. MusicMatch Jukebox users can choose to
receive recommendations that match the music they are listening to at any
given time, or recommendations based on their overall listening history.
Recommendations are presented in the new “MusicMatch Guide,” a window within
MusicMatch Jukebox.
“Traditional, generic personalization engines typically rely on simple
correlations that tend to provide recommendations lacking variety or which
are dominated by the most popular artists,” said Bill Caid, vice president of
Internet Services for MusicMatch Inc.
“MusicMatch’s service determines the
more subtle and complex relationships that attract the same listeners to very
different types of music. We believe that MusicMatch’s recommendations are
more eclectic, comprehensive and interesting than recommendations from any
other source.”
MusicMatch Jukebox integrates rich online artist and album information into
its digital audio player. Through relationships with Muze and Intervu,
MusicMatch allows its users to automatically pull up on-line artist
biographies and album notes from Muze’s Encyclopedia of Popular Music, along
with cover art, 30-second sample clips and “Buy CD” links.
The online
information is presented real-time to match music the user is listening to at
any given time, or to match the recommendations that interest them. While the
recommendations initially include published CDs available from online music
retailers, downloadable free and “for pay” downloadable music from online
music sites will be added in the coming weeks.
MusicMatch Jukebox 5.0 provides a listener-based chart service, which
displays the albums and artists that people are actually listening to every
day. This service is based on approximately 2.5 million play records
MusicMatch receives daily from its international user community, and shows
the 500 most popular albums and artists that people listen to every day.
MusicMatch Jukebox 5.0 adds a CD recording software solution. Users with
supported CD-Rs can burn custom music CDs by defining a playlist through the
MusicMatch Jukebox player interface, clicking the CD-R button, and then
clicking “create CD.”
Users can burn custom music or data CDs on the fly from
within the jukebox without having to create intermediate WAV files or
downloading and installing separate modules. The new solution supports
MP3-to-Redbook Audio conversion and data CD burning, allowing users to create
custom CDs that play in regular audio CD players, or data CDs that store up
to 150 MP3 and Windows Media Audio files.
MusicMatch Jukebox Plus users can print CD jewel case inserts with artwork
for custom CDs, and the new jukebox offers library/playlist printing, an
improved equalizer, WAV playback support, and plug-in support for Rio, Nomad,
Memcorp, Lyra, and Soulmate portable hardware players.
“We believe that music is one of the most under-consumed products in the
world, primarily because it’s so difficult for people to find and buy the
music that matches their tastes,” said Dennis Mudd, chief executive officer of MusicMatch.
“We
address this problem by using the power of the MusicMatch community to
provide our users with truly valuable recommendations for new music. With the
new matching services, MusicMatch Jukebox gives people m
ore control than has
ever been possible over how they find, buy and experience their music.”
