SAN FRANCISCO, CA. (Siren Systems Inc./ www.sirensystems.com) -
Siren Systems, Inc., creator of the world's most accurate song-level music recommendation technology and the first online community technology for music destinations, today announced it has signed agreements that will allow it to offer its services to CDBaby and the 1,600 radio stations serviced by MediaSpan Group.
In addition, the company said today that Jonathan Abrams, founder and Chairman of Friendster, will join its advisory board.
Siren Systems' Soundflavor song-level recommendation, search, and navigation engine can be licensed by any music and community destination sites. The Soundflavor engine introduces undiscovered music to an audience most likely to appreciate it, creates unique communities around eclectic interests, offers a cost-effective marketing channel for independent artists and labels, and provides licensing partners with a ready-made solution to drive new revenue and create unique user experiences around music.
- Siren Systems today launched its "Get Found!" program, a first-of-its-kind marketing and distribution package for independent artists and labels. Created in partnership with CD Baby, the premier distributor of independent music, Get Found! bundles Siren Systems' ability to market songs directly to individual music consumers, based on their unique tastes, with CD Baby's artist-friendly physical and digital distribution services.
- Siren Systems' technology will be distributed through MediaSpan Group, the leading provider of integrated on-air/online Internet and new media products for broadcasters, to create and foster community, as well as drive incremental revenue around digital music, across a network of over 1,600 radio station websites.
- Siren Systems announced today that Friendster Chairman and Founder Jonathan Abrams, has joined the company's board of advisors.
The music industry has succeeded in moving many of its CD catalogs online. However, in an age where music is sold as individual songs, and with millions of tracks now available online, the industry faces a significant challenge: how can music best be organized, packaged, and marketed for discovery by consumers, each with specific tastes?
Developed over five years of extensive research and development, Siren Systems' Soundflavor engine is the only technology which combines highly accurate, song-level advanced search, navigation, and personalized recommendations in one package. The Soundflavor engine enables music stores, subscription services, and community sites to help their users discover music they love - from the obscure to the overexposed - and develop community with people who share their personal, eclectic tastes.
"To date, music providers have applied physical-world analogies to organizing, marketing and selling songs online, but these approaches - such as categorizing by genre and recommending by artist - are inefficient in the world of digital music," said Steve Skrzyniarz, CEO of Siren Systems.
"Digital music consumers want the convenience of accurate, personalized help in finding the songs, or playlists, which fit their highly individual tastes. We believe that our Soundflavor technology will radically transform the way music is discovered and purchased, for the benefit of consumers, artists, and the industry as a whole."
Siren Systems' technology marries objective and unbiased metadata, artificial intelligence, and listener ratings to yield unparalleled accuracy. The patent-pending technology filters on hundreds of objective measures, from simple attributes such as tempo, year, and genre to a complex set of deeper attributes, such as an analysis of the role of each instrument in the song, and extensive lyrical qualities. This means that songs from emerging artists or the back catalog are as likely to show up as the Top 40.
The company's Soundflavor engine combines objective qualities at the song level with "color commentary" based on the ratings of people a user trusts to yield a personal relevancy ranked list of songs for each end-user.
"Music is both a personal and a communal activity - people are very interested in what their friends are listening to," said Jonathan Abrams, Friendster founder and Siren Systems advisor. "Soundflavor technology enables this dynamic in online communities, allowing people to find new music based on both their personal taste and the opinions of their friends, express themselves with playlists, exchange playlists with one another, and find new friends in the process. There couldn't be a more natural way for communities of people to discover and share music."
Get Found! Program Partners Siren Systems with CD Baby
Today, Siren Systems announced its Get Found! program, which bundles the marketing of any artist's music through the Soundflavor recommendation engine, with physical and digital distribution through CD Baby, the largest seller of independent CD's on the web.
"Independent musicians have historically faced huge challenges in finding an audience," said Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby. "The Get Found! program combines CD Baby's fair, artist-friendly distribution services with Soundflavor's unique ability to recommend songs directly to the right listeners. The combination of our two services creates a powerful, cost-effective marketing channel for independent artists, labels, managers, and promoters."
For $49.95, independent artists and labels may list up to five songs from any CD in the Soundflavor engine, and receive physical and online distribution plus a custom marketing page and two-minute clips of their songs on CD Baby. Artists with CD's already carried by CD Baby may list up to five songs in the Soundflavor engine for $24.95.
Siren Systems and MediaSpan
In a deal announced today, MediaSpan's First MediaWorks Division, the leading provider of integrated on-air/online Internet and new media products for broadcasters, will make the Soundflavor web platform available to its network of over 1,600 radio station websites.
"We're seeing the emergence of an increasingly individualized media consumer," said F.R. (Frank) Campagnoni, CEO of MediaSpan Group. "Using Soundflavor technology, we plan to empower our radio station customers to offer music personalization, community and commerce features to their traditional broadcast audiences via their websites, to increase revenues and listener retention.
Furthermore, Get Found! gives our radio station customers the opportunity to promote local, independent artists through their web sites."
