PURE adds music store to 'The Lounge' in a radical make-over

London, UK 14th February 2010: PURE, the world leading radio maker, announces that it has completely revamped its innovative radio and media portal, the PURE Lounge (thelounge.com) and added a full online music store.

Version 2.0 of the Lounge now makes it even easier for users to discover new radio and music content via innovative new search facilities and the latest web technology, while the store allows users to buy tracks and manage playlists. All content can be easily listened to and also managed through PURE’s internet-connected radio range.

Says Colin Crawford, PURE’s director of marketing: “This totally transformed version of the Lounge offers users the easiest, quickest and most powerful way of finding the audio content that they want as well as discovering new content and accessing ground-breaking services like FlowSongs and the new music store. With this make-over, the Lounge will quickly become the portal of choice for internet media hunters – effectively it is becoming the ‘Google’ of internet radio portals.”

Thanks to new and intuitive search technology, it’s now even easier and quicker to locate content on the Lounge, which contains almost 200,000 different pieces of audio content including thousands of internet radio stations and the widest available selection of on-demand audio. Type in any search term and the Lounge will intelligently locate content on that subject or genre across both live radio and on-demand content, including podcasts from across the world and the BBC's Listen Again services. There is also a new ‘at a glance’ section giving users a quick and efficient view of top rated content.

Social media has been integrated into the Lounge so that users can share favourite stations or on-demand content with friends. Every page on the Lounge can be sent straight to friends on Twitter or Facebook so they can also enjoy the latest jazz station in France or a top rated podcast. It is also possible to see if friends on Facebook like the same content on the Lounge.

The Lounge is also now a destination for editorial content made up of regularly updated articles by the Lounge editorial team on recommended live radio stations or on-demand content to listen to from around the world. Whether it’s the latest technology podcast, a classic radio drama or an eclectic new station, visitors to thelounge.com will discover a whole new world of content more easily, quickly and efficiently than ever before.

The Lounge enables PURE’s award-winning Flow range to access a world of internet radio, on-demand content and a library of unique, ambient PURE Sounds. When users register their Flow radio on the Lounge, they can synchronize favourites so that favourites saved on the Lounge are instantly saved on their Flow radios.

Users can also set up a Lounge account that gives them access to a growing number of services such as FlowSongs, PURE’s ground-breaking cloud-based music service that allows the user to identify (tag) tracks playing on any radio station and buy them directly from any PURE radio with Flow technology built in*. The Lounge also now allows users to discover more about the artists they’ve tagged while using FlowSongs. Thanks to the new store**, users can search artists’ tracks and albums, buy them from the Lounge, manage playlists and then listen to them on their PURE connected radio. Tracks can also be downloaded to an MP3 player.

Version 2.0 of the Lounge is available now to UK customers (full multi-language support will be available soon). The current version of the Lounge will continue to be available to customers alongside the new version until the full launch takes place.