Indie Record Store Not Dead: New eMusic Recommendation Engine From MediaUnbound Offers Music Fans Finely Tuned Picks

NEW YORK, Dec. 8, 2008 -- eMusic, the world’s largest retailer of independent music and the world’s second-largest digital music service, today announces a home page redesign and launch of a new recommendation engine. The eMusic experience now even more closely resembles a trip to the corner record store, where expert music staff gets to know customers’ tastes quickly and suggest music they might like. The new hybrid engine, created by MediaUnbound, a leading personalization and recommendation technology company, combines human analysis with computer algorithms to help music fans discover the hot new releases, legendary classics and hidden gems in eMusic’s vast catalogue of 4.5 million tracks.

“For first-time eMusic customers, this means they get great music recommendations the minute they arrive on the site,” said Deirdre Stone, eMusic VP of Product Development. “The recommendations get better and better with every action the customer takes, encouraging true music discovery and trust in the service. And the best part is – it doesn’t require you to upload your entire music library like competing digital music services.”

eMusic’s new state-of-the-art recommendation engine builds a profile for each eMusic subscriber based on their individual actions (searches, downloads, ratings, etc.), specific musical tastes and overall usage of the site. To develop music recommendations, it applies multiple algorithms on the profile along with global data culled from the internet (P2P, blogs, web radio, etc.) to find correlations and patterns between artists, tracks, albums, eMusic editorial content and even eMusic subscribers themselves. Then MediaUnbound adds high quality data, tuning and input from its global team of human music analysts to ensure exciting and accurate recommendations.

New members will see recommended album picks at the top of the page based on top artists and genres they specify when joining the eMusic community. Existing members will be offered recommendations based on their download histories, ratings, and other behavioral characteristics. The customer’s real-time actions enable the recommendation engine to become smarter over time, with immediate, relevant feedback for the user. eMusic editorial experts are also able to adjust the engine’s recommendation parameters to best match the tastes of the eMusic community.

The new home page offers eMusic subscribers an elegant look and feel with enhanced functionality. The design allows subscribers to easily stream music and access album information by simply clicking on or rolling over an album. Customers can view recommendations for “Music You’ll Love,” “New & Noteworthy,” “New Arrivals,” as well as community “Best Sellers,” “New Audiobooks” and “Freshly Ripped Today.”

“Notes from the Digital Underground” showcases eMusic’s award-winning editorial content, including the Review of the Day, eMusic Dozen, Spotlights and Q&As correlated to subscribers’ individual tastes. “Today’s Buzz” features highlighted eMusic releases and allows customers to view recent “Buzz” features as well. The redesigned home page also makes it easy for customers to access the top genres for browsing, view the top five best-selling albums on eMusic and view new upcoming releases.

About MediaUnbound
MediaUnbound builds and supports custom personalization and recommendation software for companies that sell, distribute, and display media content. By combining the numerical power of computer algorithms with expert knowledge from teams of human media analysts, MediaUnbound helps people find, discover, and interact with large catalogs of diverse content. MediaUnbound was founded in 2000 and is a privately-held company headquartered in Cambridge, MA with offices in Germany and Japan. www.mediaunbound.com

About eMusic
eMusic (www.emusic.com) is a specialty digital entertainment retailer that has been at the forefront of offering MP3 downloads and customer-friendly prices since its inception in 1998. The company is focused on serving customers aged 25 and older by offering independent music and audio books in a universally compatible format at a great value. It is the world's largest retailer of independent music and the world's second-largest digital music service after iTunes, with more than four million tracks from 40,000 of the world's leading independent labels and thousands of titles from top audio book publishers. To super-serve its more than 400,000 customers, eMusic provides award-winning editorial content, a vibrant online community and unrivaled music discovery tools. eMusic's subscription-based service offers free music downloads or one free audio book at sign-up, giving consumers an inexpensive, low-risk way to explore great new music and books they wouldn't find otherwise. The company's music download promotions help world-class brands reward and engage with their customers. Based in New York with an office in London, eMusic is available in the U.S., Canada and 26 E.U. nations. eMusic.com Inc. is wholly owned by Dimensional Associates, Inc., the private equity arm of JDS Capital Management, Inc.

NOTE: eMusic is a registered trademark and eMusic.com is a trademark of eMusic.com Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:
Cathy Halgas Nevins
eMusic
212-201-9201 or cnevins@emusic.com