June 14, 2007 14:22 ET

Gracenote Launches Mobile Music 2.0 Platform

Integrated Mobile Music Solution Combines Content Search and Discovery and Music Recognition With the Online Music Store

EMERYVILLE, CA--(Marketwire - June 14, 2007) - Gracenote®, a global leader in technology and services that are an integral part of the digital media economy, today announced the deployment of its groundbreaking Mobile Music 2.0 Platform, an integrated solution that is the first to combine products and services for simple content search and discovery, music recognition, and connection to online music stores.

The solution will power mobile music search and discovery services based on Gracenote's Global Media Database of more than 60 million tracks representing the most popular music in the world. The platform revolutionizes the mobile music experience by providing users a completely integrated solution where the PC, online music store, and handset are used as a comprehensive service for music search, discovery, management, and enjoyment. Gracenote's unique mix of offerings seamlessly combines the capabilities of all three domains, and allows for powerful functionality and compatibility between them that is unavailable elsewhere in the mobile market.

The first handsets to offer Gracenote's Mobile Music Platform will be the Sony Ericsson W910 Walkman® phone, and K850 Cyber-shot™ phone, both of which were announced today and will ship in Q4 2007.

PC to Handset: Users of handsets with the Mobile Music Platform can access Gracenote's Global Media Database to identify CDs via their PC and then easily transfer the music, and associated album art provided by Gracenote, to their handset. They can then play music while on the go -- whether it be on a run, at the beach, or on a shopping excursion.

Handset to Service: Conducting a search is easy with Gracenote's mobile music solution. Users simply type in an artist name, track, album, or even a line from the lyrics of a song, and, once the results are returned, are then instantly connected to relevant content in an online store such as Sony Ericsson's PlayNow™ or an operator branded online store. For instance, a user need only type in "You told me you loved me" to find the track "Cry Me A River," by Justin Timberlake, and will then have the option to learn more about the artist or the song, purchase or view the full track, ring tone, album art, or share it with a friend.

Along with the ability to search, users are able to identify almost any song playing on the handsets' built-in FM tuner, or anywhere within the proximity of the handset, such as at a party or a restaurant. Gracenote's Mobile Music ID™ service identifies the song, delivers song information, and then connects the user to the online store with the option to purchase related merchandise.

Finally, as part of the integrated solution, the platform provides recommendations for music the user has identified using data points based on artist type, era, origin and genre, through Gracenote's Discover product.

"Gracenote is extremely excited to be expanding our partnership with Sony Ericsson and continuing to be an integral part of enhancing the digital music experience for music phone users," said Jim Hollingsworth, senior vice president sales and marketing, Gracenote. "Gracenote's mobile music platform addresses the increased demand for the combined convenience of a mobile handset, online store and PC, and accelerates the potential of mobile music -- for both the consumer and the carriers -- through the integration of those three domains."

"Sony Ericsson has established itself as the leader within the mobile music space, having sold over 26.5 million units of its Walkman® phone since launch in September 2005. Since then we have also been at the forefront of creating easy-to-use music applications for mobiles with services like Track ID™, PlayNow™ and M-BUZZ™," said Masuhito Akebi, head of service planning at Sony Ericsson. "Today's announcement heralds the next stage of our imaging and music story, and we are pleased to be working with Gracenote to continue the evolution of music services to bring even more enjoyment and pleasure to our customers."

About Gracenote

Gracenote is a global leader in embedded technology, enriched content, and data services for digital entertainment solutions within the Internet, consumer electronics, mobile, and automotive markets. Formerly known as CDDB®, 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/.

Gracenote and CDDB are registered trademarks of Gracenote, Inc. Mobile MusicID is a trademark of Gracenote, Inc.

TrackID, PlayNow and M-BUZZ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. AB.Walkman is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation.