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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Music Makes Ditty Deals for App Firm

Starting with a premise that music should be fun and interactive, Zya Inc. has found technology to realize that objective. In late February, the Calabasas company partnered with RealNetworks to make its Ditty app available for RealNetwork users to make custom ringback tones. Ditty is a free app available for iOS and Android mobile devices that creates personalized song messages using whatever words the user types in as lyrics. The words are set to music from today’s hits to classics such as Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony.” Premium music is available for purchase. RealNetworks, in Seattle, invented the ringback, the tone heard when a call is placed and waiting for the other party to answer. Zya Chief Executive Matt Serletic said that ringbacks are still a viable business for RealNetworks and bringing in Ditty enhances that relevance to users. “It is a chance to take our technology that sings whatever you throw at it and make music personal and fun and point it toward this opportunity on a global scale to modernize the ringback business,” Serletic said. But that isn’t all that’s new for the tech startup. Late last year, it made Ditty available to celebrity news and gossip provider TMZ, owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment Group in Burbank, so that viewers can hear the latest celebrity happenings in a music format. TMZ Executive Producer Harvey Levin fell in love with Ditty after Serletic demonstrated it for him. “We built a custom experience where they are able to make Ditties and put them on TV and share them on social networks, on TMZ.com and on their Twitter handle,” Serletic said. The Ditty app was first made available about two years ago. During its first month of release it was downloaded a million times. Ditty won for best new music app in 2015 at the Appy Awards given by MediaPost Communications, in New York, and the Silicon Beach App Awards, in Santa Monica. Serletic foresees exponential growth for Ditty and Zya as the technology gets localized. In addition to having the songs in English, they can also be sung in Mandarin, with other languages to follow. The company is working with RealNetworks to bring the platform to Asia and with a partner that will do the same in China. – Mark R. Madler

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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