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Paul Sweeting

Paul Sweeting is the editor of ContentAgenda.com and a columnist for Video Business. He has covered the home entertainment industries since 1985 for Billboard, Variety, Publishers Weekly and other leading business publications. He is based in Washington, DC.


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Paul Sweeting

Paul Sweeting, Editor
ContentAgenda

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Sony connects with Gracenote - April 23, 2008

AP reported last night that Sony has agreed to pay $260 million to acquire media identification company Gracenote Inc. That's Sony, the electronics company, not Sony-BMG Music. What would an electronics company want with a database that tells software applications what CD you're playing or ripping? Connected devices and embedded content.

Gracenote, which began as a cooperative, not-for-profit venture and later went commercial, controls the world's largest database of CD titles and track lists. Pop a CD into your PC or laptop and Gracenote tells iTunes, or Windows Media Center, or Roxio the title of the CD and names of the songs so you don't have to type all that information in yourself. It does it by performing a sort of reverse-lookup, matching the index numbers on the tracks to the titles in its database.

The company is also developing a movie database for identifying DVDs and online video.

Sony's interest in Gracenote would seem to indicate a keen interest in incorporating similar applications into a wider range of devices than PCs, including devices that will need to ability to exchange the sort of information Gracenote compiles.

Why buy Gracenote instead of simply licensing its database like everyone else? Clearly, Sony sees it as strategic, not merely useful--in other words, as a potential competitive advantage in creating electronics devices with embedded content licenses and applications.

Could turn out to be a very smart move.
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Insider
May 3, 2008
Response to:
Sony connects with Gracenote

Well written article. Gracenote gives Sony the ability to monitor its competitors products; an excellent source of competitive intelligence. Sony competitors should probably consider alternatives. Gracenote also provides Sony with the ability to monitor how consumers are using music. This could be troublesome as Sony has a history of doing unpopular things such as the rootkit. An alternative explanation for the sale of Gracenote may be that their ownership may have wanted to cash out while the goings are good. Gracenote has gained a number of significant competitors in recent years. The company has lost major customers to the competition. They may have viewed this as the last chance to get a decent valuation for Gracenote. Sony was an easy mark. One correction: Windows Media Center does not use Gracenote. Microsoft stopped using Gracenote years ago when it was called CDDB Inc. Microsoft has its own database service to identify music.




MSFTman
May 5, 2008
Response to:
Sony connects with Gracenote

Windows Media Center does not use Gracenote. All Microsoft media playing software like WMP or WMC uses Microsoft's own database which is based on AMG.