At the top of the new year we reported that Gracenote had been acquired by Tribune, and was moving into a new dimension of music intelligence with a new project called Gracenote Rhythm. Today Gracenote announced a partnership with Next Big Sound, which measures music consumption trends and metrics.
Gracenote is the world’s largest music metadata compiler, with name/album information (and related data) associated with 180-million recorded tracks. When considering the enormity of that database, remember that the largest consumer music service has 30-million tracks, enough to be considered a “celestial jukebox.”
Next Big Sound focuses on measuring how users consume and discuss music, especially in the social realm. It brings a new and complementary dimension to the Rhythm initiative. The goal is to power music services, probably leveraging Gracenote’s existing clients (Amazon, Spotify, and others) who rely on Gracenote to furnish music identification. Next Big Sound can inform the metadata with recommendation layer based on its understanding of the popularity, virality, and currency of songs.
Gracenote Rhythm steps squarely into the space dominated by The Echo Nest, which furnishes music intelligence to over 400 service platforms, and also provides audience targeting for advertisers.