On Friday (Nov. 27), Absolute Radio breakfast show presenter Christian O’Connell alerted listeners to a new service — iTunes Tagging. Listeners with a fifth-generation iPhone nano, which has a built-in FM radio receiver, can mark songs as they hear them on the station’s 105.8 MHz FM channel for later purchase through the iTunes Store.
It is the first implementation of iTunes Tagging in Europe; the system has been in use in the United States since late 2007. Absolute Radio worked with Unique Interactive, part of UBC Media, and Jump2Go to roll out the service.
“Never again will people face the humiliation of trying to sing a song to their friends that they don’t know the name of. We can all be clued up music experts at the touch of a button and the new tagging service is such a simple but genius idea. You can tag songs on the go then put off doing boring jobs at the weekend by creating a playlist of your favourites and downloading the tracks you like,” said Christian O’Connell.
iTunes Tagging uses metadata embedded in the RDS subcarrier. When the listener tags a song, that information is stored. When the listener synchronizes their iPod with their computer, tagged songs are queued within iTunes for preview and, if desired, purchase.
