Axehole

Qloud (pronounced “cloud”) today launched a public beta of its search service and iTunes plug-in.

Qloud uses media player plug-ins to provide the listener data that powers Qloud’s search. In the Qloud service, users can then search through this information, and can do so in multiple ways:

• music preference (how much it is played, how highly it is rated):
• demographics (what the age, gender, location of the listeners is); and
• category (how the music is tagged).

For example, one could search for the most played tracks with the tag “workout.” But users can also go further by seeking, for example, tracks most tagged ‘workout’ and ‘hiphop’ by women in New York aged 20-30.

“Qloud will do for music discovery what Google has done for web discovery,” claims Toby Murdock, co-founder of Qloud. “Users prefer the control and immediate gratification that the search experience provides. Qloud now offers that for music, and our unique approach makes the search results accurate and satisfying to music lovers around the world.”

The key to the Qloud search are tags — keywords that users place on tracks — which go beyond the single category provided by genres and enable endless categorization of songs. Qloud gathers tag data through its player plug-in software that allows users to submit tags where it benefits them most - inside their own libraries.

“Qloud is the first company to build a plug-in like this for iTunes,” said Mike Lewis, co-founder of Qloud. “Our plug-in is a seamless additional view within the iTune application. Tagging tracks allows users to better organize and control their music libraries, just as tagging has done for bookmarks and photos. Users with very large libraries in particular will find our plug-in extremely useful.”

“So much more music — and so much more great music — is available to listeners now because of the Internet,” said Murdock. “Nevertheless most people are still listening to the same homogenized sliver of industry-promoted music, and there is a lot of dissatisfaction.”

“Qloud will connect listeners with the music out there that they would most enjoy listening to,” added Lewis. “We hope to revitalize listeners’ libraries and realize the potential of music and the Internet.”