Nielsen launches Gracenote Audio On Demand for intelligent podcast search

Nielson is announcing a new vertical for its Gracenote division: Gracenote Audio On Demand. The company describes this as a comprehensive dataset which is “the catalog of reference driving podcast services with the ability to enhance navigation and discovery capabilities.” In other words, Gracenote is doing for podcasting what it has historically done for music — catalog the entire medium with metadata. In this case the dataset identifies and locates podcasts according to topics, personalities, and other criteria. Continue Reading

Tech luminary Ty Roberts exits UMG after one year

We learn from Billboard that Ty Roberts, Chief Technology Officer of Universal Music Group (UMG) has left the company after a little more than a year. Ty Roberts’ sideways career move from Gracenote to Universal was seen by many as a significant signal that the music industry could, to some extent, reinvent itself as a technology industry — or at least a tech-flriendly, tech-fluent one. Continue Reading