Gracenote(r) and Ikivo today announced they have entered into a Preferred Partner Agreement that combines their rich mobile media content and delivery platforms to provide revolutionary solutions for music discovery, search and monetization on mobile devices. The technology partnership combines Gracenote's Mobile Music Solution Suite with Ikivo's Enrich application framework, which results in feature-rich mobile music applications for device manufacturers and operators that are fast and easy to implement and deploy.
The wireless industry's need to provide compelling, off-the-shelf multimedia solutions for its consumers is more apparent than ever.
Juniper researchers[1] predict that mobile music services will continue to generate the most wireless entertainment revenues, from almost $9 billion in 2007 to $17.5 billion in 2012, with full-track downloads as a top requested service. Gracenote and Ikivo are currently working together to integrate their technologies to provide developers and operators with faster, easy-to-use, and more engaging applications that build on open standards and widely adopted mobile technologies.
Gracenote's Mobile Music Solution Suite is a toolkit of products that provides components for a next-generation entertainment solution for handset manufacturers, carriers, and mobile content providers.
Gracenote's solution combines products and services for simple content search and discovery, music recognition, playlisting, and e-commerce, as well as allows for easy movement of music between a PC application or online music store, and a mobile device.
Gracenote's Mobile MusicID(r) uses multi-step recognition methods to enable the industry standard in identification, categorization and organization of digital music, featuring the Gracenote Global Media Database, the world's largest database of music information, accessed by more than 200 million people annually. The service enables handsets to identify songs being played anywhere within the proximity of the phones, such as in a club or restaurant. Music fans may simply hold up a handset to a music source and are instantly shown various information on the artist and album or track, as well as given access to direct download capabilities and album art links. By integrating Ikivo's open standard, rich media framework with the vast capabilities of Mobile MusicID, users will be able to seamlessly identify, purchase and customize their music libraries with visually compelling user interfaces.
"Mobile music consumption is on the rise and device manufacturers and operators are seeking easy and efficient ways to capitalize on this growing trend and serve consumer needs with feature rich music applications," said Ross Blanchard, vice president of business development for Gracenote. "Gracenote and Ikivo are working together to create unique solutions by producing the first ever implementation of audio fingerprinting on a mobile handset, increasing the speed with which music is acquired on mobile devices, and creating endless capabilities for developers and operators to customize their music applications."
The Ikivo Enrich Mobile Music Solution enables rapid deployment of mobile music services that stimulates repetitive download and consumption of music and complementary material to bring a complete music experience to the end user. A key feature of the Ikivo Enrich Mobile Music Solution is its unique user interface for handling play-lists and managing music playback. Downloading and managing music files and other music-related content such as album art, song lyrics and artists' profiles across devices and networks greatly improves the user experience compared to most existing device music managers. On top of this, almost all imaginable interactive services can be deployed using the Enrich Mobile Music Solution, like chat, interactive ads and competitions.
"The partnership between Ikivo and Gracenote will give mobile music users an unprecedented wealth of information and an addictive easy to use [1] interface to handle all their music and latest information on their favorite artists" says Magnus Zetterberg, vice president business development at Ikivo. "The combination of Ikivo's Enrich application framework which is entirely based on open standards and Gracenote's unique wealth and breadth of products and services makes the combination the premier choice for mobile operators and device manufactures."
Gracenote's Global Media Database contains data from more than 200 countries and territories and processes more than two billion searches per month. The Global Media Database currently has digital waveform fingerprints for over seven million CDs and is growing by over 25,000 per week. Ikivo's Enrich Application Framework solutions are currently deployed on over 250 million handsets worldwide and leverage widely adopted technologies such as SVG and Java Script. Ikivo's open standards framework provides rich media applications, such as mobile media players with visually compelling user interfaces.
Recognized as the industry standard for music recognition services, Gracenote licenses its technology to thousands of developers of consumer electronics devices and online media players around the world. Its services are available in the industry's most popular mobile phones, media players, home stereos, MP3 players, and car stereos. The combined Gracenote and Ikivo solution provides handset manufacturers and mobile operators with the platform to quickly and efficiently create feature rich music applications, enabling users to search, discover and purchase music.
First Glimpse at Mobile World Congress and the Swedish Technology Pavilion A high-quality prototype of Gracenote and Ikivo's new mobile music solutions is being previewed during Mobile World Congress Feb. 11 - 14.
View a demonstration at the Gracenote hospitality suite in Hall 4, Level 3 Suite No. 4.3HS19; the Ikivo Stand on the Swedish Tech Pavilion show floor, ground level, Hall 2, Stand No. 2F13; or at the Ikivo Hospitality Suite: Level 6, Hall 4, Suite No. 46.
About Gracenote
Gracenote is a global leader in embedded technology, enriched content, and data services for digital entertainment solutions within the Internet [1], consumer electronics, mobile, and automotive markets. Formerly known as CDDB(r), Gracenote delivers a substantially improved consumer experience in digital media devices and applications, plus media monitoring and other data services to the recording industry, making it an integral part of the digital media economy. Gracenote powers leading services including Apple iTunes, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, Winamp; home and automotive products from Alpine, Panasonic, Philips and Sony; and mobile music applications from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Europe), and others. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Gracenote has offices in New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Seoul.
For more information about Gracenote, please refer to www.gracenote.com/corporate/.
About Ikivo AB
Ikivo is the leading supplier of rich media application enabling solutions based on open standards, with a deployed base of more than 250 million mass-market and open OS mobile phones. These solutions empowers mobile operators, mobile device manufacturers and media companies to deliver rich compelling services such as Interactive Mobile TV, Mobile Advertising, On-Device Portals and Mobile Music. The Ikivo product portfolio includes modular sophisticated technology for embedding and OTA delivery, in addition to industry standard tools for the development and deployment of rich media mobile applications and solutions.
Gracenote and MusicID are registered trademarks of Gracenote. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Veronica Skelton, Concept Communications for Gracenote Tel: +1 415 342 3435 e-mail: veronica@conceptpr.net Louise Stewart-Muir, Stewart-Muir Communications, Ikivo PR Inquiries Tel: +44 (0)20 8971 6417 Tel: +44 (0)20 8971 6400 Magnus Zetterberg, VP Business Development, Ikivo Sales Inquiries Tel: +46 70 305 77 68 e-mail: ikivo@saycomms.co.uk
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[1] http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1075146/#