Shazam is preparing to launch a new app called the Shazam Player. The original Shazam music tagging app has been downloaded about 165 million times since 2008. The Shazam Player app will have synced lyrics (LyricPlay), social sharing, bios, smart playlists, etc.

Apple and Starbucks have amped up their in-store “Pick of the Week” partnership to offer a free iPhone app each week. The Pick of the Week offers began in 2008 but previously only gave consumers free tracks through the iTunes Music Store. CNET reports that the first free app is Shazam Encore, which identifies music you hear, and normally costs $5.99 in the App Store.

Shazam, a mobile music service that takes short audio recordings to identify what users are listening to, may extend their services to television. While the company’s apps currently allow users to quickly learn the name of a song playing on the radio, Shazam may soon be known for displaying discounts and bonus content when users “Shazam” television advertisements. All Things D reports that Shazam is already making deals with MTV, Syfy and Old Navy, and that they have raised $32 million in investments for this expansion.

Shazam, the music discovery and tagging tool has updated their iOS application to support a new feature called Shazam Friends. Shazam Friends lets users share music with their Facebook friends through a News Feed feature. The News Feed will show what songs that their friends have identified and tagged in real-time. If you hear a song on the radio and want to know the name, simply open the Shazam application and click “Listen.” Shazam will then tell you the name and artist of the song along with a list of places to buy it, the lyrics, tour info, YouTube videos, Twitter/Facebook/email, and a link for ringtones. [Mashable]

Music discovery application Shazam is now available for Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 7 is expected to arrive in the U.S. before the end of the year. Shazam will be a free download on the Windows Phone Marketplace. As part of the initial offer, Windows Phone 7 users have unlimited tagging. If you hear a song you like but don’t know the name, then you can use Shazam to identify the song name, artist, and album. You can also buy the identified song from the Zune marketplace. “We expect the number of Shazamers to grow exponentially as new handsets built on Windows Phone OS 7.0 hit the global market,” stated Shazam vice president of product marketing Alex Musil. [Mashable]

The most popular music identification service Shazam has hit 1 billion song recognitions. These recognitions were made through 75 million of Shazam’s users. Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher predicts that they will hit 100 million users by the end of the year.

Last month Shazam was discovered to be raising a new round of funding from the iFund. And since then Shazam announced a new paid application that is available for download.

The concept behind Shazam is covered by a patent owned by Digimarc according to Bruce Davis, Chairman and CEO of Digimarc.

Digimarc has had patents since 1995 that relate to technology where a device can identify audio and visual content and immediately link it to an associated Internet service. Davis said that they tried to settle with Shazam out of court, but little progress has been made. So a complaint has been filed.

Shazam will have to defend themselves from Digimarc in the U.S. District for the District of Oregon with the Civil Action number 3:09-cv-1355-KI.

Shazam started in 2002 as a mobile music discovery company. The company first gained an immense amount of popularity when launching an iPhone application. The Shazam application has been downloaded about 50 million times on the iPhone, Google Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, etc. Shazam has a database of over 8 million songs on their database which goes back to the 1950′s. Shazam is a private company that is based in London, England.

When you hear a song on the radio or on your laptop, you can Tag it using the Shazam application. Shazam will tell you the name of the song, give you a link to buy the music on Amazon or iTunes, and allow you to tweet what you are listening to.

The latest news with the company is that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has invested in them. Kleiner Perkins made the investment through their iFund financial arm which is intended for iPhone application developers. Shazam previously raised $12.3 million in funding from DN Capital and Acacia Capital.

Shazam is planning to launch a service that will connect with concert tickets for artists that have been tagged by the app. So far Shazam has been cash-flow positive.