Nokia Lumia 800 To Offer Song-Finding Service

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We all knew, thanks to our own Chris Smith who ran down the stats for us on the Nokia Lumia 800, that it was going to come with Nokia Music / Mix Radio support right out of the box. But a new wrinkle has emerged for the Nokia Music side of things, and if it seems a bit familiar to you, it’s likely because you’ll recognize it right away…or at least where it comes from.

See, the folks out at Nokia kind of knew they’d be under the gun when it came to getting streaming music out to their smartphone buyers. Spotify and Pandora lead the list, along with a panoply of internet-specific radio stations. So it may not be too much of a surprise that Nokia figured that they should be on one side or another of the beat ‘em / join ‘em paradigm, and thus called in the folks at Echo Nest to develop an automatic song-finding feature for Mix Radio.

Echo Nest, you see, is the same company that built the song-finding features for both iHeartRadio and Spotify, so it’s clear that Nokia wants Mix Radio to be on the same strata as those two services. Mix Radio will now use a simple browser app that establishes what’s called a “taste profile” from your current music library, and then takes that taste profile to create personalized radio stations geared around those tastes. Nokia, for its part, is calling it the “most personalized global music service” that mankind has ever known, which is a little heavy on the hyperbole, I’d say, but considering what else is out there, it may not be too far off.

And, on the off chance you don’t have too much of a music library for your phone, you’ll even get to pick from fully 100 pre-programmed streaming stations, as well as another 15 hours’ worth of downloadable programming.

Not a bad package all things considered, I’d say, though admittedly Nokia’s likely going to have a bit of an uphill battle against its various competitors. Still, though, it’s going to be something to watch, so keep it right here for all the latest on this one!