11/5/2004
MONTREAL - Canadian mobile phone company Microcell (Fido) this week announced the launch of Name That Tune, its new music recognition service that allows customers to identify almost any song as soon as they hear it, whether they are in a bar, listening to the radio or at home watching TV.
All customers have to do is dial #DJ from their Fido and hold the handset up to the music source for approximately 30 seconds. The service will automatically hang up and then send a text message with the name of the artist and title of the song.
"We've all had the experience of hearing a song and not being able to remember the name or artist," said Ren� Bousquet, vice-president of marketing for Microcell Solutions Inc. "Now, your Fido can come to the rescue. This service has been incredibly popular throughout Europe, and we expect to see the same excitement about it here. What's more, Fido customers are being given one free tryout of the new service."
The music recognition service, provided by Musicphone Inc. in partnership with Shazam Entertainment Ltd., is able to identify approximately two million tunes of almost any type of music, with the exception of classical and live performances. It relies on an audio recognition technology that can identify recorded audio segments, even under noisy conditions. The service recognizes songs in a number of languages, and the instructions and the text messaging interface are available in English and French.
Name That Tune is the first in a series of entertainment services Fido (which is currently in the process of being purchased by Rogers Communications) will be launching over the next few months. Customers will eventually have the option of directly downloading the identified song as a ring tone.
"More and more people carry only one communication tool - a wireless device - so their demand for fun and convenience is growing too," continued Bousquet. "Clearly, our customers see their handset as a source of musical entertainment, and we've already seen significant uptake in ringtone customization and the use of short codes to do such things as vote for Canadian Idol contestants."
As Fido's Name That Tune service is voice- and text-messaging-based, it is available to all of the company's 1.2 million customers, regardless of which handset they use or whether they subscribe to a monthly airtime package or use prepaid service. The service costs $1 per successful identification, plus applicable airtime. If the service is unable to identify a song, there is no charge to the customer.
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