Qloud (pronounced “cloud”) today launched a public beta of its search service and iTunes plug-in.

Qloud uses media player plug-ins to provide the listener data that powers Qloud’s search. In the Qloud service, users can then search through this information, and can do so in multiple ways:

• music preference (how much it is played, how highly it is rated):
• demographics (what the age, gender, location of the listeners is); and
• category (how the music is tagged).

For example, one could search for the most played tracks with the tag “workout.” But users can also go further by seeking, for example, tracks most tagged ‘workout’ and ‘hiphop’ by women in New York aged 20-30.

“Qloud will do for music discovery what Google has done for web discovery,” claims Toby Murdock, co-founder of Qloud. “Users prefer the control and immediate gratification that the search experience provides. Qloud now offers that for music, and our unique approach makes the search results accurate and satisfying to music lovers around the world.”