TheFilter.com to play key part in We7 future

Monument PR Worldwide, Tuesday, 30 September 2008

Peter Gabriel ventures sign major deal to improve and heighten user experience

Tuesday 30th September - Entertainment recommendation service TheFilter.com is announcing a major new deal with download music site We7. The partnership will enable We7 users to get filtered recommendations based on their listening habits.

We7, which recently signed EMI for its ad-supported streaming music service, now has a catalogue of over three million tracks. But the site claims that it is now a challenge for its users to discover new music based on tastes due to the huge choice available.

TheFilter.com's integration into the We7 service will combat this problem by giving users access to its smart filtering tools. The tools use an advanced mathematical algorithm to filter out music that a user will not like and filter in content that reflects their taste.

The powerful Filter engine will be used to recommend artists, albums and songs – first within a specific genre and then across more genres as it gathers more consumption and usage data related directly to the We7 catalogue.

"At We7 we really believe it is critical that music fans can listen to the music they want, when they want with a simple 'click'," said Stephen Purdham, CEO at We7, "but with a catalogue at 3m tracks and growing, sometimes that choice becomes difficult. That is where the great recommendation technologies of TheFilter.com come into its own, providing easy suggestions to guide fans to music they will love, increasing their enjoyment of the We7 service."

David Maher Roberts, CEO TheFilter.com says: "I am delighted to be able to add We7 to our growing list of partners. The Filter's smart recommendation engine is the perfect solution to help content owners and distributors connect more users to more of their content - and I am convinced that We7 will see an immediate effect."

Maher Roberts added that one of the major benefits of partnering with TheFilter.com is that "we share the aggregated usage data with all of our partners - this means that the more partners we have using our service, the greater the depth of the consumption data and the better the recommendations for all involved. We hope to be signing up a number of new partners in Europe and the US over the coming months."

TheFilter.com tools on We7 are expected to be live shortly after their major launch later in the year.

About TheFilter.com

The Filter is a personalised content filtering system that aggregates entertainment and information and connects users to content that reflects their tastes and moods. The developers behind The Filter are world leading British software company Exabre. They are backed by high profile investors, including Peter Gabriel's Real World Group and Eden Ventures.

The Filter has been downloaded in 164 countries. Its database currently includes over 5m songs, 330k movies and more than 50m individual purchases and playlists.

The Filter works by using Bayesian mathematics. It was developed by Martin Hopkins, a physicist who was struggling to manage his growing digital music collection. www.thefilter.com

About We7

We7 is the first free and legal service of its kind in Europe delivering music in the way consumers want it. We7 users can listen to music for free whenever they want, and buy whatever they love. The service works by 'grafting' short, relevant ads which precede the free music tracks based upon information known about the user, such as location, age and gender. This advertising ensures that artists and labels receive royalties for making their songs available, whilst consumers receive streamed legal music free of charge. We7 showcases exciting music of all genres from labels big and small (including three majors) as well as directly from unsigned artists. Co-founded by Peter Gabriel, We7 is expanding the digital download market and pioneering incremental music revenues from advertising - www.we7.com

Ad-funded music downloads site We7 has signed up EMI music.

Around 400,000 tracks from EMI Music's repertoire of artists, including We7 founder investor Peter Gabriel, will be available on We7.com through both on-demand, ad-funded audio streaming and paid-for MP3 downloads.

The partnership means We7 users will be able to listen to full tracks and albums on an unlimited basis at no cost, create personal playlists, and share their favourites with their friends.

We7's advertising technology plays short, targeted audio adverts before each streamed track and ensures that music offered through the site is legal but rights owners get paid and valued.

We7 plans to start delivering EMI Music's content later this year, and is delighted to welcome We7 founder investor Peter Gabriel to its growing roster of available artists. Peter Gabriel, commented: "I am very happy my catalogue is finally available on We7".

Douglas Merrill, President, Digital Business, EMI Music, said: "We7 represents the new and innovative digital experiments underway in the market today, giving fans another way to experience their favourite music and providing artists with an avenue to reach new audiences. We are pleased to be a part of emerging digital initiatives, including We7."

Steve Purdham, Founder Investor and CEO, We7, said: "We7 is making phenomenal progress ahead of our full launch later in the year, there's real momentum in the industry right now and ad-funded streaming is becoming more widely accepted as a legal alternative to piracy. We're really excited to be offering great music from EMI Music's world-class repertoire of artists on We7.com, enabling fans to listen to tracks for free when they want and then buy the music they love."

Unlimited Free Music

by Simon Power, sonicstate.com, 14-Aug-08

Warners Strike A Deal With We7

Warner Music has made a deal with We7, the download site co-founded by Peter Gabriel, to offer paid-for mp3 downloads and ad-funded on-demand audio streaming via its online portal.
This means that We7 members will have access to unlimited tracks and albums in their entirety at no cost.They will also be able to create playlists, share music and embed tracks into their personal websites.

We7’s on-demand music player will play ads before each streamed track to fund the service which is intended to be up and running by late October 2008.

Steve Purdham, Founder Investor and CEO of We7, said: "Recently there has been a lot of focus on piracy, but this deal is reflective of the radically changing digital landscape where music fans can access high quality, safe and legal alternatives.”

Links : We7

Peter Gabriel rallie Sony Music à son site de musique gratuite

Lundi 11 août 2008, le JournalDuNet

Le producteur de musique du monde et ex-chanteur du groupe Genesis, Peter Gabriel, vient de signer un contrat de licence avec Sony Music pour son site lancé en juin 2007, We7, annonce le New York Times. Ce site propose aux internautes de télécharger gratuitement des titres de musique en échange d'une exposition de 10 secondes à une publicité. Après avoir créé OD2 en 1999 et l'avoir revendu 40,5 millions de dollars à Loudeye en 2004, Peter Gabriel a multiplié les investissements dans les sociétés de musique en ligne.

Guitar Hero, Rock Band ... isn't it all a bit Peter Gabriel?

Keith Stuart, # The Guardian

Rock Band probably won't save the music industry

It's great that the mainstream media has switched on to videogames as an inventive and exciting form of media rather than the work of Beelzebub and all his techno-demons. The only problem is, every new trend is being eulogised as some sort of minor cultural revolution. If you believe everything you read, Wii Fit is going to solve childhood obesity, brain-training games have crushed idiocy, and online casual gaming could eradicate boredom and loneliness by 2012. Global warming? Games will probably have that fixed within the decade.

The latest example involves the rock music sims Guitar Hero and Rock Band - both of which allow users to download new music tracks to twang along to. It turns out this is going to save the music industry. Admittedly, there are some compelling stats doing the rounds - Guitar Hero players have now downloaded over 15m tracks, while Rock Band users are at the 12m mark. Furthermore, when the ageing glam rockers Mötley Crüe recently debuted their latest single on both Rock Band and iTunes, sales were five times higher on the former. Music industry execs everywhere are crawling back from 20th-storey window ledges to their desks.

But let's look at the groups using Guitar Hero and Rock Band as a distribution platform for new material. So far, Mötley Crüe have been joined by Aerosmith and Metallica, both of which are set to have special editions of Guitar Hero based around them. We're hardly at the chalkface of contemporary music here. It reminds me of that period in the late 90s when artists such as Peter Gabriel and David Bowie started making awful websites and interactive CD-Roms. Call me back when Crystal Castles, MGMT or No Age start launching songs in this way and maybe we can talk. And no, the fact that Coldplay has just released three tracks for Guitar Hero III doesn't count.

Most recently, we discovered that the latest Guitar Hero sequel/cash cow, subtitled World Tour, is set to include an "innovative" studio mode, allowing players to "lay down" their own tracks. Amazing. A revolutionary concept. Except, 10 years ago, Codemasters introduced its Music series of sampler/sequencers on PlayStation, and later PlayStation 2. Cheap, yet powerful, these games were employed by a generation of urban artists - Dizzee Rascal for example - to create their first tracks and gain the attention of record labels.

This latest interplay between the game and music industries ... well, it's interesting, but certainly not new or world-shatteringly pertinent. Just as videogames are unlikely to destroy civilisation, they're probably not going to save it either. At least until Little Big Planet turns us all into brilliant game designers. Or Spore makes us gods.