Audience is backed by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, whose Vulcan Capital is the third largest shareholder in the company (25%). Tallwood Venture Capital holds 32% share and New Enterprise Associates holds 30% share.

You might know Audience as the makers of earSmart, “the world’s most intelligent voice processor.” earSmart technology works to replicate how humans hear, by differentiating different sounds and enhancing voice sounds while keeping background noise in the background.

Basically, earSmart aims to improve mobile conversations in loud places.

earSmart is currently available in over 60 mobile devices, including the HTC Titan, Samsung Galaxy S II, Google Nexus One, and HTC Vivid.

From the S-1 filing:

We were founded in 2000 and initially targeted the rapidly growing mobile device market, including mobile phones, media tablets and mobile PCs. We began production shipments in 2008 and, as of December 31, 2011, had sold over 135 million processors to our OEM customers. In addition to the mobile device market, we believe that our voice and audio technology is applicable to a broad range of other market segments, including automobile infotainment systems, digital cameras, digital televisions, headsets and set top boxes. We outsource the manufacture of our voice and audio processors to independent foundries and use third parties for assembly, packaging, test and logistics. We had total revenue of $2.5 million, $5.7 million, $47.9 million and $79.7 million for 2008, 2009, 2010 and the nine

[Hat Tip to GeekWire]

The site was created by Nikhil Shah and Nico Perez with the intention of creating a space where DJs and radio presenters can share and promote their mixes and shows without having to use file sharing sites, according to Wikipedia. Mat Clayton is named as a third co-founder on the site.

"We’re friends old and new (many of whom met at Cambridge University) connected by our love for radio, problem solving and building exciting new projects," the team says. "It was through this intersection of interests that we realised there’s an obvious problem on the Internet that we need to fix – that of connecting radio shows, DJ mixes and Podcasts to listeners."

"We think all these forms of content offer a very similar listening experience – a ‘Cloudcast’ – that is curated by a human enthusiast or expert," the Mixcloud team adds. "That’s the important bit – we’ve always discovered great new things through people we respect, so we want to help guide listeners to those people more easily."

Mixcloud is still in beta, and has a ways to go in terms of content if it wants to become the "YouTube" of radio. The concept is a good one though, and it will be interesting to see if it becomes successful. It’s going to take a lot of users jumping on board, and if the buzz it is already starting to generate is any indicator, it just may have a shot. Either way, it’s one to keep an eye on.

The new tool called AudioPal lets users create 60-second personal voice messages that can be posted to their personal web pages, blogs, and social networks.

"Millions of people log on to social networking sites, blogs and personal Web pages each and every day to update their status and inform friends and family on just about everything from where they are and what they are doing to their views on politics, sporting events and much more," says OddCast CEO  Adi Sideman. "AudioPal is revolutionizing status updates by giving these messages a voice. The unique technology can be used to publish a voice message anytime, and at no cost, so the message is always fresh, up to date and truly personalized."

AudioPal works within the browser, without any plug-ins or downloads. The user simply records a voice update via telephone, microphone, or text-to-speech technology ( in 20 different languages), and an email is sent to the user with a link to the audio. Advanced playback options are offered so that uses can control when and how often a message is to be played.

Features include:

- Record and use your own voice
- TTS – Many Voices to choose from
- Detailed playback control options
- Update your audio anytime

While AudioPal is free (and in beta), Oddcast says that if enough people like and use it, they may offer an enhanced paid version down the road.

Disclosure: While Oddcast does advertise with the iEntry Network, this is by no means a paid, write-up.

"Start with directed search and streaming and then sit back or multi-task and Listen to content matching your favorite programs and queries like ‘ABC Nightline,’ ‘Bernanke,’ and ‘Fantasy Baseball,’" the company says. "Currently we are indexing audio files from about 3,000 RSS feeds but we plan to index all web audio, talking head videos, and short personalized text-to-speech segments."

With Google Listen, you can use the search bar from the home screen to search for audio programs, then just press on a result to automatically stat listening. Long-pressing brings up more options.

Users can keep subscriptions, which allow you to keep up to date on specific programs or search terms. Once a search result is pressed, there is a checkbox in the corner that lets you easily subscribe. The app always shows the latest episode on the programs tab of the My Subscriptions screen. Users can subscribe to search terms by selecting the checkbox while viewing the search results. Users also keep a My Listen queue, which lets you chose specific episodes to hear in the order you want.

Google listen can be downloaded here. There is also a FAQ and more information.

"In 2006, we launched Google Audio Ads and Google Radio Automation to create a new revenue stream for broadcast radio, produce more relevant advertising for listeners and streamline the buying and selling of radio ads," says Google’s Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management. "While we’ve devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven’t had the impact we hoped for."

However, don’t count Google out of the audio world entirely. They are simply shifting focus to streaming audio.

"We are dedicating a team of people at Google to explore how we can best add value for advertisers, broadcasters and listeners in this emerging advertising space," explains Wojcicki. "In addition, we will continue to invest in our growing TV advertising business, where we can measure audience response and help advertisers understand how effective their ads are."

The fact that she calls the TV advertising business "growing" is probably a good sign that that part of Google’s advertising business is not going down the same path as the radio one yet. Frankly, I can’t see an AdWords-based television advertising platform not being popular enough to keep.

Advertisers will continue to be able to use Google Audio Ads until May 31. Broadcasters will also be able to publish inventory to Google until then.

There was a bit of controversy over this when it first started appearing because it did not appear and disappear the way it does now. It was just simply there. "The search bar was part of the YouTube skin, so users could remove it programmatically," explains Rick Turoczy at ReadWriteWeb, who also points to the dismay of users on Twitter. "But for people with multiple embedded YouTube videos, that meant a lot of editing."

YouTube quickly acted on that dismay and made the feature function as it now does, which is much less intrusive, and actually quite useful. They recently added the search bar to the end of embedded videos, but now, you can search for a different video when you determine the one you’re watching isn’t actually what you want to see.

The other piece of YouTube news is that they have formed a partnership with Rumblefish, "the sonic branding and music licensing agency," and will give YouTube users access to thousands of licensed songs that they can use to put music over their videos. The Rumblefish tunes will be part of YouTube’s AudeioSwap tool that lets you do just that.

How Do You Use AudioSwap Anyway?

YouTube explains just how to do so:

While logged-in, either click on the “Try AudioSwap” button below or go to “My Videos” and click on the AudioSwap button below each one of your videos. Then browse our library to find a song. Once you’ve selected a song, click on the "Preview" button to preview your video with the selected track. If you’re satisfied with your new video, click on the "Publish" button below to finalize its transformation. To learn more about AudioSwap, check out the Help Center.

Please Note: When you add a new soundtrack, the audio track on your video will be permanently replaced. You can replace the audio track as many times as you like; however, once it has been replaced you cannot get the previous version back. You may want to upload a few videos to experiment with.

YouTube also provides a nice before-and-after example of a video utilizing AudioSwap (actually with Rumblefish-provided music) at the blog post announcing the partnership. Head over there to see it in effect.

This dude has the coolest job in the world. He’s the audio engineer at Austin City Limits and has been for decades.

Anyone have a cooler job? It’s my goal to meet all the people in the world with cool jobs. I figure that’ll keep me busy for at least a few months.

One way you know that they have a cool job? They don’t leave.

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Here is a recap of the SES Chicago posts in case you missed any:

• Meet the Web Analytics Players
• Igniting Viral Campaigns
• Keynote Speech – Rodney Dangerfield School of Search Marketing
• Keynote – Seth Godin & 14 Trends to Avoid a Meatball Sundae
• Big Site, Big Search
• Actionable Social Media
• Usability and SEO
• Are You Ignoring the Power of Images?
• Snowy & Festive at SES Chicago
• SEO and Development – Get It Together
• Personalization, User Data & Search
• Podcast and Audio Search
• Strolling the Exhibit Floor at SES Chicago
• Images and Search Engines
• Managing PPC For Multiple Clients
• So You Want to Be A Search Marketer?
• Landing Page Optimization Clinic
• Kevin Ryan Unplugged
• Do Your Keywords Account for Local Vernacular?

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I just completed the PRoactive Report on Monitoring the Online Conversation so it’s very timely.

Other sessions I plan to attend and blog baout

• Actionable Social Media:

• Podcast & Audio Search:
• Images & Search Engines:

With Google Universal pulling in images, news, audio and video these are the must attend sessions.  I will cover them this week, so keep reading.

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On his blog yesterday, Robertson describes Sideload this way:

Sideload is an audio search engine. It has links to audio files and shows you where those files are on the net. Sideload does not host any files. There are many, many such search engines….Many people simply use Google, which is likely the biggest audio search engine in the world. Any complaint against Sideload could be leveled against Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask since they all have links to song files.

Another point of contention in the lawsuit is MP3Tune’s Music Locker, an online storage service. While EMI contends that MP3Tunes makes unauthorized copies of digital audio files, Robertson differentiates by noting that users who own their music can store it on whatever device they please. Lockers are protected by user names and passwords, he adds, so they aren’t publicly accessible.

One interesting point of distinction in EMI’s suit, though, is that Sideload advertises on its site "Free Music On The Internet" and "424,337 Free tracks from 42,991 Artists." Additionally, any of the songs listed on the website can be listened to without leaving the website, which may make it different from Google’s services.

Then again, indexing has held up in court over the years, which is, technically, copying Internet files. But it may not play in Robertson’s favor that he offered to remove the links EMI complained about before lawsuits were filed. EMI attorneys wanted "substantial" compensation instead.

It’s been just seven years since Robertson was sued by the music industry. The 2000 case, a row over MP3.com, was settled for $100 million and Robertson eventually sold MP3.com to Vivendi for just shy of $400 million. Vivendi then flipped the domain to CNet.

But Robertson notes the difference between his former business at MP3.com and his current business at MP3Tunes. In the late 1990′s, MP3.com hosted music files and they could be downloaded directly. MP3Tunes, he says, does not host any music files. 

Robertson has described this new lawsuit as "retaliatory" after he filed suit against EMI to seek declaratory judgment that his business model is legitimate. EMI filed its suit shortly thereafter.

In interviews, Robertson has accused record labels of rushing to sue online music companies as lawyers seek to up their billable hours via drawn-out litigation. Instead, he says the recording industry should be looking to new ways of distribution in a more cooperative spirit.

He references specifically a technology developed through MP3.com that converted purchased CDs to MP3 files for listening while customers waited for the CD to be shipped. But the RIAA saw my.mp3.com as an illegal database of some 45,000 CDs.

"If the music industry would have adopted this technology, it could have extended the life of the CD another 10 years," he writes. "But, it chose to sue MP3.com and missed a golden opportunity — CD sales are down a staggering 60 percent since that time. While MP3.com may be an interesting footnote in digital music history, MP3tunes is an entirely different company with different technology."

Though that argument didn’t convince the judge back in 2000, Robertson is banking that his new service is covered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that it counts as an audio search engine, and that people have the right to store the music they own in whatever form and on whatever device they choose.