Press Releases
Fact Sheet | In the News | Press Releases | FlyFi Logo Usage
FlyFi isn't exactly wet behind the ears. Prior to Halloween, 2008, FlyFi lived an active life in beta, collecting data about music lovers, under the name of Goombah. Many of the press items here reference Goombah (think FlyFi in it's larval state)
GOOMBAH INTRODUCES USER-CONTROLLED RADIO DELIVERY OF ITS MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS
Users Can Select and Play Full-length Tracks from Other Peoples' Collections, and Their Own Recommendations, with Napster's Free Music Service
With 100 Up-Front Recommendations, Web Radio goes from a Trickle to a Torrent
Portland, Maine - May 9, 2007 - Emergent Music, developer of the Goombah music recommendation and social networking community, today introduced user-controlled radio delivery of its taste-targeted music. Through integration with Napster's advertising-supported, web-based music streaming service, Goombah members can now listen to full-length tracks of recommendations in one long stream, for free. Members can also listen to the music in other members' libraries by queuing up hundreds of tracks at a time.
"We're very excited to have Goombah as a new channel partner," said David Chun, senior director of product management at Napster. "Combining Goombah's recommendations of long streams of taste-targeted music with Napster's full-length track listening experience provides a high-value experience to music fans that adds a great deal of relevance to both services."
With targeted up-front recommendations, web radio goes from a trickle to a torrent as Goombah users start off with sets of 100 tracks, based on their entire library, playlist or any defined list, which are drawn from the music libraries of matching members. Goombah users can view their recommendations by rank, artist, genre or "adventurousness" level and then select all or part of the list to create a radio-like stream of personalized music. A playlist of all of those tracks that are available in Napster's vast library will then queue and play for free. If Goombah users want to buy a track, they can do so through Napster or any digital music store of their preference.
"This collaboration creates perfect personalized radio stations that both suggest music the user will like and give the user control over what is actually played. It also enhances the browsing experience as users can play music they find on other member profiles," said Diane Sammer, CEO of Emergent Music. "Internet radio is one of the ways that consumers prefer to listen to music and we are pleased to provide this new kind of radio experience for our users."
How Goombah Works
Goombah analyzes each user's iTunes collection and listening behavior and connects them to people and music that precisely match their taste. Users can sample recommendations and purchase them from various online sources. Goombah also offers personalized downloads of free, legal MP3s, and the ability to browse and play entire music libraries of matching members and friends.
The service's Radio Free Goombah makes Internet radio a vehicle for personal expression by allowing users to develop their own radio playlists or use Goombah-created playlists. The radio players contain music from Goombah's Free Music collection so users can "keep" tracks to play anywhere as they listen. Players can be shared via a widget or email.
Goombah also leverages the power of community by providing an easy way for users to explore the music and profiles of people with similar taste. Goombah displays the top 20 people with the most similar musical taste for each user as a starting point for exploration. Goombah displays all the artists that members hold in common, and allows them to browse and listen to each other's entire libraries. Member profiles include each member's Top Artists, Favorite Tracks and Top Goombah Downloads, and members can add bios, rant/rave about music, point to their blogs, websites or MySpace/Facebook profiles and communicate directly with each other.
About Napster
Napster, the pioneer of digital music, offers the ultimate interactive music experience. With an expanding roster of offerings including free, Web-based music listening and sharing, subscription and portable subscription services, and an advanced mobile music platform, Napster creates better ways to discover, share, acquire and enjoy music ñ anytime, anywhere. Napster is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Frankfurt, Luxembourg, New York, San Diego, San Jose and Tokyo.
About Emergent Music
Emergent Music LLC, creator of Goombah, was formed by five experienced entrepreneurs around the idea that nothing should come between artist and audience. To download Goombah for the Mac or Windows PC or for more information visit, www.goombah.com.
Goombah Free Radio Allows Music Fans to Download & Keep Tracks
Users Can Create Their Own Playlists, Share Radio Players via Email or Post on Web
Goombah User Library Expands to 7M Tracks; Free Music Library Grows with Addition of IODA Promotional Tracks
Portland, Maine (April 10, 2007) - Emergent Music, developer of the Goombah music recommendation and social networking community, has expanded its offerings with new applications and new music. The company is launching Radio Free Goombah, which allows listeners to download and keep tracks to play anywhere, and to share them via email or by posting on web pages. Users can enjoy Goombah selected playlists, load players themselves with tracks from the Goombah Free Music collection, or share their favorites from their Goombah profile. The company also signed a deal with the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) to add tracks from more than 3,000 labels to its free music library, as part of its strategy to target professional free music to a broad audience.
"Goombah is about music discovery, social networking and affinity," said Diane Sammer, CEO, Emergent Music. "We are adding great music to our library through relationships with distributors like IODA, and launching services like Radio Free Goombah, to serve music lovers who want to find and share music and artists who want to reach their audience and new fans."
Radio Free Goombah
Radio Free Goombah, a unique radio offering that allows listeners to download and keep tracks to play anywhere, is available at www.goombah.com. Users can develop their own radio playlists or listen to and keep music from the Goombah-created playlists. All of the radio players can be exported as a widget to post on blogs or web pages and emailed to friends.
In addition to user-created playlists, Radio Free Goombah currently offers the following playlists:
- Goombah Free Music Friday - http://django.goombah.com/radio/fmf/
Featured artists and tracks from Goombah's collection
- Top Downloads of the Week - http://django.goombah.com/radio/topweekdl/
Members favorites from Goombah's collection
- All Around the World
- Classically Inclined
- JazzFest
- New Alternatives
- Perpetual Groove Machine
- Rock
- Roots & Rhythm
- Singer-Songwriters
More Music Choices
Content is central to Goombah's ability to make recommendations, connect members with similar tastes, and provide music discovery and distribution tools. Since December of 2006, Goombah's member libraries have grown by more than five million tracks, now offering a library of over seven million songs from which the service makes recommendations.
Goombah has also expanded its library of free downloads through an agreement to position IODA's library of more than 20,000 songs to users based on their taste. Labels and distributors including The Orchard, Adrenaline Music, Iris Distribution, Touch and Go/Quarterstick Records and Indie 911 have signed on with Goombah to promote their artists.
Users are now able to download and keep free tracks through Goombah's recommendation service, podcasts and Radio Free Goombah.
About Goombah
Goombah employs each user's unique "matching member" libraries to generate virtual consensus on recommendations with no effort required from the user. The service also offers a wide variety of free, legal MP3s from established and emerging artists that are targeted to users based on their taste. Users can download these tracks to play on their iPod or other music player and keep them forever.
About Emergent Music
Emergent Music LLC, creator of Goombah, was formed by five experienced entrepreneurs around the idea that nothing should come between artist and audience. To download Goombah for the Mac or Windows PC, and for more information visit www.goombah.com.
For More Information:
Cheryl Delgreco
Media Strategies Inc.
617-723-4004
cdelgreco@msipr.com
New Goombah Browsing Brings People Together Through the Universal Language of Music
Better Music Through More Meaningful Connections
PORTLAND, Maine, January 23, 2007óGoombah (www.goombah.com), a recently launched free desktop application for intelligent music recommendations, has enhanced its social networking tools by adding Goombah Browsing, which makes it easy for users to explore the music and profiles of people with similar taste. Now, in addition to precise recommendations, member matching and taste-targeted free music, users can meet the people behind the music. Goombah Browsing lets users see what other members and friends say about their music and themselves, and provides a look at the details of their entire music library.
Goombah puts each user in the right starting place for browsing by displaying the top 20 people most like them musically after analyzing each member's entire iTunes collection. Because the initial connections are so relevant, the evolution of a member's network is particularly targeted. A user doesn't need to click around trying to find similar members, but rather is introduced to a natural "word-of-mouth" network of their tastemakers.
Goombah displays all the artists that members hold in common and allows members to browse each other's entire library. Goombah provides information such as each member's Top Artists, Favorites Tracks, and Top Goombah Downloads. Members can add bios, rant/rave about music, point to their blogs, website or profiles on sites such as MySpace or Facebook, and communicate directly with each other.
"People are the path to music and the best way to find new music is through others who share a similar passion," said Diane Sammer, CEO of Emergent Music LLC, the company that developed Goombah. "Goombah's technological advantage allows it to match people very precisely based on an analysis of their entire music collection and listening behavior and with the addition of Goombah Browsing our users can more fully explore those connections wherever they lead."
_____________________________________________________
GOOMBAH: COMMUNITY DRIVEN MUSIC DISCOVERY LAUNCHES TODAY
Analyzes iTunesô Libraries to Recommend Tracks from Matching Members
Goombah's Taste-Targeted Free Music Creates Efficient Promotional Model
During its five-month beta testing period, Goombah's user-driven music inventory has grown to nearly 5 million unique tracks from which it draws recommendations.
Goombah, whose name means close friend or trusted advisor, uses "matching member" libraries to generate virtual consensus on recommendations with no effort required from users to define their taste or search for others. Recommendations are limited only by the array of music in Goombah members' collections, and are not influenced by what is marketed or narrowed by a pre-selection of tracks or artists. As a result, music recommendations continually change as the community grows and are not only precise, but diverse and full of pleasant surprises.
If users want to take the wheel in exploring new music, members' and friends' libraries are available in their entirety for browsing. Users can control the range of Goombah's recommendations with an "Adventurous" slider, changing from popular recommendations to fringe artists with a click. Personalized recommendations, matching members and free music can be easily generated by iTunes playlist, genre, artist or any combination of tracks.
"As consumers' music libraries transition from physical CDs to virtual files, and the sheer number of 'tastemakers' increases, finding reliable sources of recommendations for new music ñ that map to his or her personal tastes ñ is becoming more difficult," said Mike McGuire, research VP, Gartner. "Consumers are looking for tools which can help manage a more complex environment while giving them ways to link with like-minded music fans."
Goombah offers a wide variety of free, legal MP3s from established and emerging artists that are targeted to users based on their taste. Users can download these tracks to play on their iPod or other music player and keep them forever. This promotional music is sourced from record labels and third-party distributors, vetted for quality, and updated weekly on "Free Music Fridays".
"Goombah provides a compelling way for consumers to discover music and build their personal collections. We also offer a way for artists to efficiently find their audience regardless of how large or small it may be," said
"Goombah's distributed approach and matching technology makes it the workhorse of recommendation services resulting in quality taste-based matches for all users. Goombah finds the best tastemakers for each user and music spreads through the community organically like word-of-mouth between friends," explained Sammer.
Goombah's Technology
Goombah's sustainable advantage is the combination of its pending patents for statistical algorithms and massively-distributed architecture. This technology delivers on the promise of collaborative filtering for music by distributing the large computational load to the users' underutilized desktop. Users get immediate quality recommendations and the processing capacity grows with the community, minimizing the company's investment in infrastructure.
The company's core technology enables the processing of very large data sets associated with music recommendations. All of the music tracks in every user's library are considered by Goombah when evaluating a taste profile. The ability to analyze all of the information, with no need to reduce it into a summary form, allows for the precise matching of dynamic taste profiles, yielding high quality and varied recommendations.
In addition to precision, the Goombah technology is completely scalable regardless of the number of users or the size of their libraries. The inventory is unbiased and there is no limit to the amount and types of music that can be recommended. Also, the core recommendation technology is capable of application to other forms of digital content.
New Promotional Model: Target Audience Positioning (TAPô)
Goombah's precise matching technology creates an efficient promotional model for the music industry to reach their audience niche. The TAP program allows artists to access, through Goombah, individuals who are likely to enjoy their music based on their taste. Already, more than 30 labels and distributors, including The Orchard, Adrenaline Music, IRIS Distribution, Touch and Go/Quarterstick Records and Indie 911 have signed on with Goombah to promote their artists.
"Toolshed has been promoting music on behalf of its label and artist clients through Goombah since its early beta testing and we're very excited about what we've seen so far. It's our feeling that music recommendations based on analysis of what is in a particular user's iTunes library is very much the wave of the future. Our artists are finding new fans every day through Goombah," said Dick Huey, CEO of Toolshed and new media consultant.
About Emergent Music
Emergent Music, LLC is based in
________________________________________________________
CELEBRATE A "FREE MUSIC
Free tracks include The First Noel from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen sung by Nancy Wilson, Chanukah Medley from Lori Cahan-Simon, and O Holy Night from the Barra MacNeils. The LeeVees, a collaboration between members of the rock bands Guster and The Zambonis, sing a fun and the spirited How Do You Spell Channukkahh? and Martin Sexton performs Holly Jolly Christmas. Seasonal music from around the world includes Andre Previn and The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (Strauss' Alphine Symphony),
About Goombah
Goombah is a free desktop application for music recommendations based on each user's taste and the power of community. Using its patent pending technology, Goombah analyzes each user's iTunes collection and listening behavior and connects them to people and music that precisely match their taste. Users can sample recommendations and purchase them from various online sources, download free, legal MP3s which are updated weekly on "Free Music Fridays", and browse entire music libraries of members and friends.
About Emergent Music
Emergent Music, LLC is based in
iTunes is a trademark of Apple Computer.
.
Press Releases
New Goombah Browsing Brings People Together Through the Universal Language of Music
Better Music Through More Meaningful Connections
PORTLAND, Maine, January 23, 2007óGoombah (www.goombah.com), a recently launched free desktop application for intelligent music recommendations, has enhanced its social networking tools by adding Goombah Browsing, which makes it easy for users to explore the music and profiles of people with similar taste. Now, in addition to precise recommendations, member matching and taste-targeted free music, users can meet the people behind the music. Goombah Browsing lets users see what other members and friends say about their music and themselves, and provides a look at the details of their entire music library.
Goombah puts each user in the right starting place for browsing by displaying the top 20 people most like them musically after analyzing each member's entire iTunes collection. Because the initial connections are so relevant, the evolution of a member's network is particularly targeted. A user doesn't need to click around trying to find similar members, but rather is introduced to a natural "word-of-mouth" network of their tastemakers.
Goombah displays all the artists that members hold in common and allows members to browse each other's entire library. Goombah provides information such as each member's Top Artists, Favorites Tracks, and Top Goombah Downloads. Members can add bios, rant/rave about music, point to their blogs, website or profiles on sites such as MySpace or Facebook, and communicate directly with each other.
"People are the path to music and the best way to find new music is through others who share a similar passion," said Diane Sammer, CEO of Emergent Music LLC, the company that developed Goombah. "Goombah's technological advantage allows it to match people very precisely based on an analysis of their entire music collection and listening behavior and with the addition of Goombah Browsing our users can more fully explore those connections wherever they lead."
_____________________________________________________
GOOMBAH: COMMUNITY DRIVEN MUSIC DISCOVERY LAUNCHES TODAY
Analyzes iTunesô Libraries to Recommend Tracks from Matching Members
Goombah's Taste-Targeted Free Music Creates Efficient Promotional Model
During its five-month beta testing period, Goombah's user-driven music inventory has grown to nearly 5 million unique tracks from which it draws recommendations.
Goombah, whose name means close friend or trusted advisor, uses "matching member" libraries to generate virtual consensus on recommendations with no effort required from users to define their taste or search for others. Recommendations are limited only by the array of music in Goombah members' collections, and are not influenced by what is marketed or narrowed by a pre-selection of tracks or artists. As a result, music recommendations continually change as the community grows and are not only precise, but diverse and full of pleasant surprises.
If users want to take the wheel in exploring new music, members' and friends' libraries are available in their entirety for browsing. Users can control the range of Goombah's recommendations with an "Adventurous" slider, changing from popular recommendations to fringe artists with a click. Personalized recommendations, matching members and free music can be easily generated by iTunes playlist, genre, artist or any combination of tracks.
"As consumers' music libraries transition from physical CDs to virtual files, and the sheer number of 'tastemakers' increases, finding reliable sources of recommendations for new music ñ that map to his or her personal tastes ñ is becoming more difficult," said Mike McGuire, research VP, Gartner. "Consumers are looking for tools which can help manage a more complex environment while giving them ways to link with like-minded music fans."
Goombah offers a wide variety of free, legal MP3s from established and emerging artists that are targeted to users based on their taste. Users can download these tracks to play on their iPod or other music player and keep them forever. This promotional music is sourced from record labels and third-party distributors, vetted for quality, and updated weekly on "Free Music Fridays".
"Goombah provides a compelling way for consumers to discover music and build their personal collections. We also offer a way for artists to efficiently find their audience regardless of how large or small it may be," said
"Goombah's distributed approach and matching technology makes it the workhorse of recommendation services resulting in quality taste-based matches for all users. Goombah finds the best tastemakers for each user and music spreads through the community organically like word-of-mouth between friends," explained Sammer.
Goombah's Technology
Goombah's sustainable advantage is the combination of its pending patents for statistical algorithms and massively-distributed architecture. This technology delivers on the promise of collaborative filtering for music by distributing the large computational load to the users' underutilized desktop. Users get immediate quality recommendations and the processing capacity grows with the community, minimizing the company's investment in infrastructure.
The company's core technology enables the processing of very large data sets associated with music recommendations. All of the music tracks in every user's library are considered by Goombah when evaluating a taste profile. The ability to analyze all of the information, with no need to reduce it into a summary form, allows for the precise matching of dynamic taste profiles, yielding high quality and varied recommendations.
In addition to precision, the Goombah technology is completely scalable regardless of the number of users or the size of their libraries. The inventory is unbiased and there is no limit to the amount and types of music that can be recommended. Also, the core recommendation technology is capable of application to other forms of digital content.
New Promotional Model: Target Audience Positioning (TAPô)
Goombah's precise matching technology creates an efficient promotional model for the music industry to reach their audience niche. The TAP program allows artists to access, through Goombah, individuals who are likely to enjoy their music based on their taste. Already, more than 30 labels and distributors, including The Orchard, Adrenaline Music, IRIS Distribution, Touch and Go/Quarterstick Records and Indie 911 have signed on with Goombah to promote their artists.
"Toolshed has been promoting music on behalf of its label and artist clients through Goombah since its early beta testing and we're very excited about what we've seen so far. It's our feeling that music recommendations based on analysis of what is in a particular user's iTunes library is very much the wave of the future. Our artists are finding new fans every day through Goombah," said Dick Huey, CEO of Toolshed and new media consultant.
About Emergent Music
Emergent Music, LLC is based in
________________________________________________________
CELEBRATE A "FREE MUSIC
Free tracks include The First Noel from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen sung by Nancy Wilson, Chanukah Medley from Lori Cahan-Simon, and O Holy Night from the Barra MacNeils. The LeeVees, a collaboration between members of the rock bands Guster and The Zambonis, sing a fun and the spirited How Do You Spell Channukkahh? and Martin Sexton performs Holly Jolly Christmas. Seasonal music from around the world includes Andre Previn and The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (Strauss' Alphine Symphony),
About Goombah
Goombah is a free desktop application for music recommendations based on each user's taste and the power of community. Using its patent pending technology, Goombah analyzes each user's iTunes collection and listening behavior and connects them to people and music that precisely match their taste. Users can sample recommendations and purchase them from various online sources, download free, legal MP3s which are updated weekly on "Free Music Fridays", and browse entire music libraries of members and friends.
About Emergent Music
Emergent Music, LLC is based in
iTunes is a trademark of Apple Computer.
.