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Today at 9:02 AM, matchmine’s press release hit the wires announcing four new partners and one distribution deal. Though I could pick up my metaphorical pom-poms again and preach the virtues of matchmine (I am their evangelist, you know), I won’t do that here. Instead, I’d rather take a look at the partners.

1. Odeo- A podcast site with millions of free downloadable episodes.

From the press release:

Odeo – As one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Media Web Sites in 2007, Odeo is expanding its offerings by integrating video aggregation, mobile device synchronization, and media search technologies into its leading podcast destination website. With close to 5 million audio and video episodes available for download, users can explore, search and find media that interests them, share favorites with friends, and publish to blogs and social networks. By leveraging the MatchKey Partner Network, Odeo is able to better understand their users’ preferences across multiple media-types, enabling them to provide a more intimate and unique discovery experience.

I signed up for an ODEO account yesterday and checked out the service. And I did something I have never done before: I listened to podcasts. I know, I know. It’s a sad day. I think I may have been the lone holdout; the last person to avoid listening to podcasts. Well, that’s all over.

After signing in to odeo, I found BoingBoing, c|Net, diggnation, engadget, and more.

Once you find a podcast you’re interested in, you can listen directly from the page, or you have the option to subscribe to an RSS feed, add m3u or xspf and subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

This site was useful to me, as my big problem with podcasts is finding them. I don’t want to hunt for a podcast to listen to, so a categorized directory of podcasts that may be interesting to me has value.

2. Blogged- A blog discovery and promotion service that I love. (Hey, they rated this blog a 9.0 out of 10, how could I not love them? Ahem, blogged.com folks, I wouldn’t mind, say, 9.5……)

From the press release:

Redefining blog discovery, Blogged provides a place for readers to discover interesting blogs and for authors to discover who their readers are. Blogged goes beyond being a traditional blog directory. matchmine will enable users to discover new and interesting blogs based on their preferences from the company’s database of over 200,000 blogs.

I took a look at blogged here when they launched, and recently added a blogged.com review on the sidebar (look left). See my blogged.com post for more information (no need to repeat it here, as it’s already going to be a ridiculously long post).

3. Blogdigger- A blog-focused search engine.

Before the announcement, I’d never heard of blogdigger. Here’s what the press release said:

Recently acquired by Odeo, Blogdigger is a popular search engine for blogs and syndicated media content. Blogdigger supports advanced options, including filtering results by media type (audio, video, images) and file formats. Users can subscribe to keyword searches and automatically receive new digital media content pertaining to their interests.

I’ve taken a look around blogdigger, and found the following features:

1. RSS feeds for media files- you can get RSS feeds that are tied to a particular media type (WMV, mp3, QuickTime, BitTorrent, avi, Flash).
2. Groups- You can combine the content of two or more blogs into one RSS feed.
3. Blog Search- Blogdigger’s engine spiders the web to find blogs with RSS feeds and indexes the results. I like toast.
4. Link Search- Basic backlink checking.

Blogdigger is now part of Odeo presumably to help users find podcasts, blogs, and video.

4. MediaMelon- High definition internet video.

This one is interesting. From the release:

MediaMelon – MediaMelon is an Internet video delivery service, optimized for delivering high-definition, full-screen videos that can be accessed and played from various IP devices without the need for a dedicated desktop application or hardware device. MediaMelon will leverage the unique matchmine approach to discovery to optimize delivery of videos, enabling content publishers that are using the combined MediaMelon offering to make online videos available to users at their site.

When you sign up for MediaMelon, you download a browser plugin. After signing in with your plugin installed, you’ll see a list of available high definition videos:

Looking at the ducati HD video, I see:

The video then downloads behind the scenes, and I received a notification when the video was ready. The video quality really is excellent, but it takes some time before it is ready to view.

What’s interesting to me here is that you don’t actually download the video directly to the desktop. Since the videos are huge (40 meg for only 49 seconds), downloading within the site makes sense.

5. IODA- Global independent music distribution.

Where the rest of the sites in today’s release are consumer focused, IODA is a little different. From the release:

IODA is the industry-leading digital distribution company for the global independent music community. IODA provides comprehensive services to record labels, physical distributors, and artists, including license negotiations; media encoding and metadata management; and royalty payment administration and reporting. IODA offers promotional support through a dedicated marketing division and through the IODA Promonet, a promotional distribution network that provides qualified podcasts, blogs, and other promotional sites with access to pre-cleared, legal music and other promotional assets from IODA’s labels.

“IODA’s partnership with matchmine gives our labels and distributors a unique opportunity to connect artists with fans based on fans’ interests and preferences,” said Kevin Arnold, founder and CEO of IODA. “We are impressed with matchmine’s technology and look forward to a mutually-beneficial relationship.”

Looking at IODAs site, they have deals with, well….

….Everybody (this isn’t even the full list).

Summing it up

Objective Blogger Voice: This release is significant news for matchmine. The value of the MatchKey is directly proportional to the number of places it can be used, and this will be accomplished through expanding the MatchKey Partner Network.

matchmine Employee Voice: This is great news for us. We’ll keep adding great new partners to help people find exactly what they want wherever they go.

Independent Blogger Voice: Wow dude, that employee guy sounds like a marketing tool. Way to shill.

My Own Voice: Though absolutely biased, I’m really excited about this. I want to find stuff I like, and that includes blogs, music, movies, books, news, etc., and when more and more partners are lit up, I’ll be able to do just that. Sweet.

Filed under: Uncategorized, media discovery, shameless self promotion, transparency