Beyond Collaborative Filtering ... eMusic Introduces A New Generation Of Personalization To Digital Music

Beyond Collaborative Filtering ... eMusic Introduces A New Generation Of Personalization To Digital Music

The Leading Independent Music Service Continues to Set the Standard for Ways to Discover Music; Offers 1:1 Personalization with Technology Powered by ChoiceStream

NEW YORK, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- eMusic (www.emusic.com), the world's No. 2 digital download service-selling more than 2.4 million tracks monthly- steps further ahead of its competition today with the debut of a new generation of personalization features available exclusively to eMusic subscribers.

Through technology powered by ChoiceStream, eMusic subscribers now gain 1:1 personalized recommendations for New Arrivals, new tracks which have not yet been rated by other members or eMusic editors. In addition, eMusic will soon be launching personalized playlists-personalized recommendations from other members and eMusic's award-winning team of critics, editors and writers- based on each user's specific music preferences.

ChoiceStream's market-leading technology analyzes not only the member's download history, but also his or her preferences based on the underlying attributes of the music he or she downloads. In other words, the technology discerns not just what you like, but why you like it. Armed with this insight, ChoiceStream determines the artists, albums, tracks and playlists best-suited to each member's particular tastes and interests, resulting in true 1:1 personalization.

Among the new features available exclusively on eMusic:

-- Personalized "Your New Arrivals" provide accurate, personalized recommendations of both new releases and back catalogue music that is new to eMusic. The recommendations make it easier for members to discover great music by automatically surfacing the most personally relevant albums for each member as soon as they become available. -- eMusic Dozens are playlists from eMusic's award-winning curatorial staff. Spanning some 60 genres, Dozens represent the twelve most essential, important albums as selected by one of the foremost critics, musicians or authors immersed in that genre. Now these unparalleled musical selections are surfaced precisely to those eMusic subscribers most likely to appreciate them.

Coming Soon: -- Personalized Playlists are personalized lists of playlist recommendations culled from an inventory of tens of thousands of playlists created by eMusic subscribers, eMusic's award-winning editorial staff and by the new eMusic Dozens which represent the personal picks of influential musicians, rock critics and authors in each of more than 60 sub-genres.

eMusic's new personalization capabilities expand on the success of previous personalization features powered by ChoiceStream, including eMusic Neighbors and Top Fans.

"Other music services offer 'personalization' that's effectively 'If you like this, you'll also like that,'" said David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic and a managing director of Dimensional Associates, the private equity arm of JDS Capital that owns eMusic, The Orchard and Dimensional Music Publishing. "This results in recommendations that are 'more of the same' and far too focused on mainstream popular music. This is basic 1999-era functionality. At eMusic, we use ChoiceStream's vastly more advanced technology and couple that with the collective musical expertise of our more than 120 curators resulting in musical discovery across a more diverse catalog. We continue to out-innovate other services to redefine the state-of- the-art for music discovery. If you know what you want and need a music search engine, use iTunes. If you want to hear something new, use eMusic."

"We're thrilled to be expanding our role, working with eMusic to drive useful and meaningful innovation in the world of online music," said Steve Johnson, CEO of ChoiceStream. "eMusic has been a true pioneer in digital music. Now, with the addition of these new capabilities, they're once again breaking new ground as they deliver-for the first time in the music industry- true, one-to-one personalization."

Beyond Collaborative Filtering

Instead of focusing on traditional collaborative filtering, clickstream or activity analysis techniques, which are notoriously unreliable predictors of behavior and require extremely large volumes of data in order to make meaningful predictions, ChoiceStream focuses on understanding the underlying attributes of the content being personalized as well as each user's preferences for those attributes. Armed with this insight, ChoiceStream matches each individual with the content best suited to his particular tastes and preferences.

ChoiceStream's intelligent recommendation models learn across multiple sites and millions of users, continually improving in accuracy and relevance over time. This gives ChoiceStream models deep insight into how different product attributes drive user choices, which ultimately enables ChoiceStream to uniquely deliver:

-- Automated personalized merchandising. ChoiceStream's data-driven merchandising accurately predicts consumers' preferences and makes relevant product recommendations proven to drive clickthroughs, sales conversions and up-sells.

-- Significantly greater product variety, accurately targeting profitable non-mainstream inventory. Often the most profitable merchandise for a retailer, 'long tail' inventory is overlooked by other retail recommendation solutions. Because ChoiceStream goes beyond just recognizing patterns and user ratings to understand why consumers make the product choices that they do, ChoiceStream personalization can reach much deeper into inventory and surface many times the breadth of products as other personalization technologies.

-- Accurate recommendations-even with limited profile information. ChoiceStream's intelligent preference models can make highly informed recommendations based on very limited input. The recommendations go beyond songs ... by delivering artists and albums ChoiceStream drives more useful and meaningful discovery.

About eMusic

eMusic (http://www.emusic.com/) stands alone as the only digital music service that is 100% focused on serving the needs of independent music fans and independent labels. Delivering more than 2.4 million downloads each month, eMusic is among the top digital music services, offering a diverse catalog of 750,000 tracks from established and emerging artists in every genre from the world's top independent labels. eMusic was not only the first service to sell songs and albums in the popular MP3 format, it was the first company to launch a digital music subscription service. Unlike other services that severely restrict portability, eMusic allows members complete flexibility to burn CDs, transfer to MP3 devices and make multiple copies for personal use. eMusic also offers access to exclusive recordings from eMusicLive's network of premier music venues across the country. eMusic subscription plans start at $9.99 per month for 40 downloads. A free trial is available to all new users. Based in New York, eMusic is wholly owned by Dimensional Associates, Inc., the private equity arm of JDS Capital Management, Inc.

NOTE: eMusic is a registered trademark and eMusic.com is a trademark of eMusic.com Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contacts: Andy Morris / Justin Kazmark Andy Morris and Company (212) 561-7465 / (212) 561-7466 andy@amc-pr.com / justin@amc-pr.com

Source: eMusic

CONTACT: Andy Morris, +1-212-561-7465, or andy@amc-pr.com, or Justin Kazmark, +1-212-561-7466, or justin@amc-pr.com, both of Andy Morris and Company for eMusic

Web site: http://www.emusic.com/

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