Lets music fans jam to personalized radio and playlists of 20 million songs
EMERYVILLE, Calif. – June 24, 2014 – ROK Mobile has enlisted Gracenote® to power its new ROK Music streaming service for personalized Internet radio. With Gracenote Rhythm™, ROK users are able to create a constant stream of their favorite tunes based on Gracenote’s algorithms and world-class music data.
Launching on July 4th, ROK Mobile is a new wireless phone service that provides unlimited voice, text and data for only $49.99 per month, with no long-term contract. As an added incentive, ROK Mobile is offering its exclusive ROK Music streaming service, featuring more than 20 million tracks, at no additional charge.
Tapping into Gracenote’s musical algorithms, and editorial and data expertise, ROK Music lets fans launch and stream radio stations based on their favorite artists and tracks. They can then take it a step further by applying Gracenote mood filters to match the right musical moment. For instance, fans can create a playlist based on an artist like Lorde. Filtering by a mood such as “excited” will deliver more energetic tracks, like “Team,” while a mood such as “cool” provides a more relaxed playlist like her song “Royals.”
“Gracenote and ROK Mobile are serving up musical experiences that encourage fans to explore and discover new artists and tunes across all genres, around the world,” said Eric Allen, general manager of Music at Gracenote. “ROK Music reaches into our unique mix of descriptive metadata, global music editors and adaptive algorithms to deliver a personalized experience based on a listener’s musical taste and mood.”
Using Gracenote’s Rhythm discovery platform, ROK Music learns what you like and dislike with its adaptive controls and gets smarter and more personalized the more they are used. ROK Mobile will also control radio-tuning features that allow music fans to dial up more popular artists or dial down to receive more obscure, indie artists and tracks. Combined, Gracenote’s trove of metadata, international editorial expertise and powerful algorithms will create dynamic music stations and channels on ROK’s new music service.
“Given ROK’s tech savvy target audience, it was important that we approached ROK Music as a ‘mobile-first’ solution, not a bolt-on service,” said Jonathan Kendrick, CEO and chairman of ROK Mobile. “ROK Music users will be able to stream our vast catalogue of 20 million and surface popular and emerging artists and tracks based on their musical tastes, thanks to Gracenote’s Rhythm platform. The music experience remains a key differentiator for ROK as we launch a revolutionary mobile service that is centered on today’s lifestyle.”
Since launching Rhythm, Gracenote added trending and popularity data from Next Big Sound and Musicmetric to help uncover new and emerging artists and tracks. New data from these sources will be paired with Gracenote’s music recognition insights, gleaned from more than 600 million daily searches of the Gracenote database, creating one of the best sources of music discovery and recommendation.
About ROK Mobile
ROK Mobile is an innovative telecommunications and music streaming company that is striving to bring our customers the best cutting edge technology and music personalization to improve the way our customers live work and play. For more information about ROK Mobile, please visit www.rokmobile.com.
About Gracenote
Gracenote, Inc. provides music and video content and technologies to the world’s hottest entertainment products and brands. Gracenote is the industry standard for music and video recognition and is supported by the largest source of music and video metadata, featuring descriptions of more than 180 million tracks and TV listings for 40 countries. Gracenote is a subsidiary of Tribune Company (OTC:TRBAA) and has 15 offices with worldwide headquarters in Emeryville, Calif. For more information, visit our website www.gracenote.com or follow us at @GracenoteTweets and www.facebook.com/PoweredbyGracenote.
Gracenote is a registered trademark of Gracenote, Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.