It’s always exciting to see industry friends/colleagues reach the
impressive milestone of product launch, and it’s even more exciting
when the product is something that actually has some legitimate
potential. Such is the case with Tunezee, a music search and discovery engine co-founded by Ogi Todic,
who I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for a few years now. I recently
had the chance to touch base with Ogi and get some more details about
Tunezee’s current business as well as their future plans.
CP: In a nutshell, what is Tunezee?
OT: Have
you ever remembered a few lines from a song, but have no idea who sings
it or what the name of the song is? Tunezee allows you to find that
song/artist through search using lyrics or other descriptors, confirm
the results via our SmartKlip service, browse full lyrics of the song,
view videos and purchase music and related merchandise. The SmartKlip
service is a short music clip which corresponds to the search phrase.
It allows you to hear exactly the part of the song that you’ve
remembered. This will help you find the song you have in mind much
faster.
CP: How did the idea for Tunezee come about?
OT: It
was a combination of a couple of things. I was working on a project
that involved digital audio processing for a video application. In
talking to my friend (now co-founder) we thought the technology could
power a music search service that would be more powerful than what is
currently available on the market. Both of us had been in situations
where we knew the line from a song but not who sang the song. We knew
how bad the user experience was around music search, so we figured we
could make it significantly better.
CP: Tell us a little bit about yourself and the folks behind Tunezee
OT: Tunezee was started by myself and Tony DeFranceschi.
Tony has a strong business background; he worked at McKinsey for a
number of years where he consulted software, telecom and mobile device
clients as well as held operating roles at two startups. I’ve held
different technical roles at a couple of Silicon Valley companies that
created some innovative technologies and services. Most recently, I
have been running a software consulting business helping various
startups as well as the Stanford Technology Ventures Program on building software systems. I’d also like to add that Tunezee would not be what it is without our stellar engineering team.
CP: What is your primary value proposition for both users and content owners (specifically music rights holders)?
OT: We
help users quickly find the music they are looking for, connect with
music, share their findings with friends and acquire music via their
preferred online store. The current user experience is fragmented in
that users often have to go to multiple sources/websites to search for
music, confirm the results, and then take action (for example, buy
music or share findings with friends). We aim to streamline this
process and to create a one-stop music search and discovery service.
We
help content owners monetize their content more effectively. A user’s
attention span is increasingly becoming shorter and shorter. If a user
is exposed to a song (radio, concert, party, restaurant), but can’t
easily find it and reconnect with it, the likelihood of that song being
purchased diminishes significantly. That is why we created a simple and
effective music search solution – Tunezee – which will help increase
the sales of music and associated merchandise.
CP: What problem or absence in the marketplace does Tunezee solve?
OT: Tunezee
provides an effective search and discovery solution in the music space.
Our goal is to fill a void in the music search space, which is
currently addressed via a combination of standard search engines and
cottage industry websites.
CP: How many songs do you currently have in the database, and what does the future growth of this database look like?
OT: We have hundreds of thousands of songs (over a million if you count the same songs on different albums). As
for future plans, our goal is to provide a service where users can
quickly find any song for which they are looking. This will require
significant growth in the number of songs, as well as song and user
metadata, which will enable a better search experience. There is still
room to enhance user experience and provide users with the most
relevant results when they are searching for music.
CP: Thanks, Ogi.
Interestingly
enough, within a few days of our Q&A session, the International
Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising published a report
revealing that longer, higher quality free music samples engage more
listeners and reduce the number of free riders. According to ScienceDaily.com,
the report concludes that “an effective digital music free sample
strategy should involve high-quality, long samples of the music being
marketed, the researchers conclude. This makes it more likely that the
consumer listening to a sample will buy the full product, whether
that’s a CD or a track download, rather than being a free-rider.”
Data such as this bodes well for Tunezee — now let’s just keep our fingers crossed and hope that the music industry agrees!
