The company is partnering with digital entertainment technology firm Gracenote and MediaSocket, a provider of network application services, to develop its Listen and Search and EZ TV programs. The services will offer integrated services that are designed to allow subscribers to identify and purchase music playing directly on TV handsets.
The Search button on the handset allows a user to identify a song playing on a music video, a TV commercial or from another source by using Gracenote’s Mobile MusicID to retrieve a match in its local waveform database and deliver the name of the song, artist and album to the handset. Gracenote’s Link service then enables the recognized song to be linked to commerce, such as purchases of ring songs, full song downloads and CDs, through KDDI’s WAP portal.
For the first time, our customers will be able to identify songs they’re hearing on the television, on the radio or other sources, and buy related content, such as ring songs, full songs or albums, at exactly the moment they’re listening to that song, said Makoto Takahashi, vice president of the Content Division at KDDI.
