Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Who identifies your digital music?

Chances are it's identified by Gracenote CDDB (compact disc database).  Wired has a great story about Gracenote; how they started and where they are going.  What I love most about Gracenote is the fact that they built their extensive CD database from the input of users like me.  Back when Gracenote first started up, I would spend the time to enter information into Gracenote as accurately as possible so that other users wouldn't have to; I did this because other users were doing the same thing for me.  Gracenote is currently used by the major online music stores, including Apple's iTunes Music Store; I love being able to put in very obscure or live CDs only to have Gracenote return the full disc information and track listing.

Gracenote has a new product called Music ID.  From the Wired article:

. . . a file-recognition technology that analyzes the audio characteristics of a digital file like an MP3 or Windows Media Audio file. The service uses audio waveform technology to match music without any identifiable tags to Gracenote's database . . .

New this year, Gracenote's Mobile MusicID can identify snippets of songs through a cell phone. Music fans can dial a number and hold up their mobile phone near a radio, for instance, and Gracenote's service will send a message to the phone, identifying the tune being played . . .

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