Irish pair launch synchronised i'Tunes library

IRISH DUO Niall Smart and Cormac Driver launched Echodio at South-By-SouthWest Interactive.

The pair, who are currently on a three-month programme with San Francisco angel investment firm Y Combinator, presented their new service for iTunes users as part of the conference’s Accelerator sidebar.

Accelerator is SXSWi’s American Idol-style showcase for new tech start-ups, held in conjunction with Microsoft BizSpark.

After a two-minute presentation on the service, Echodio’s Smart faced questions on the product from a panel of judges including Ali Partovi (iLike) and Elliot Hurst (Supernova.com).

Echodio was among 20 finalists chosen from more than 200 applications for the Accelerator showcase. Others shortlisted alongside the Irish company in the music technology section were Gigotron, Mugasha and ultimate section winner Popcuts.

Smart describes Echodio as a “synchronisation product for iTunes users” which will allow users with more than one iTunes library to keep them in sync.

“If you have an iTunes library at work and at home, there is no way to keep them in sync until now and it’s a major pain-point for people,” he explains.

“Echodio sits on your desktop and keeps the iTunes libraries in sync. If you add a new tune on your work computer, for example, it automatically pushes it up to the cloud and pushes it down to your home machine.

“It means you can have the exact same music library everywhere you use iTunes.”

Echodio also currently offers an online storage facility and Smart says a streaming service will be launched very shortly.

“It’s bringing the convenience of streaming to people who have large MP3 collections,” he says of the planned streaming add. “It means you will have the same music collection at home, in work, on your mobile phone, on the web and on your TV.”

For more information, visit www.echodio.com