Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Shazam

Shazam Is Creating A New Shazam Player App [UPDATED]

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:48:37 +0000

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.

“This is a replacement for the music player on iOS devices. We have great technology and features we can wrap around any track, but it’s been so far limited to music you can discover out and about. We thought we’d bring the feature set and technology to music you have on the device already,” stated Shazam EVP of marketing David L. Jones.

The LyricPlay feature allows users to pull up lyrics for many popular songs in their own library. There are about 50,000 songs available for LyricPlay, which requires licenses from the rights owners. Shazam Player will feature social sharing on Twitter and Facebook. Check out a demo video of Shazam player below:

Update: Edited the article to reflect that Shazam Player is a new app rather than a replacement after being contacted by Shazam’s PR.

Apple Teams with Starbucks to Offer Weekly Free iPhone App

Riley Kennysmith — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:42:10 +0000

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.

The Pick of the Week App cards are available at Starbucks cash registers. There is no word on whether the apps will replace or appear alongside the music in the Pick of the Week program.

Shazam Raises $32 Million to Try TV

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:02:37 +0000

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, a London-based company with more than 140 million users, attracts 1.2 million new users each week.

Shazam App Now Has News Feed To Share Music Tagging With Friends

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:07:06 +0000

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]

Shazam Launches Application For Windows Phone 7

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 22:14:03 +0000

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]

Shazam Hits 1 Billion Songs Identified Through 75 Million Users

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:58:47 +0000

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.

Shazam started back in 2002 and is based in London, England. Shazam became extremely powerful when their service became available on mobile devices. Shazam’s application lets you identify a song by simply making it listen to a 30 second clip and it is very accurate. The 1 billionth song that was identified was Gettin’ Over by David Guetta featuring Chris Willis.

Shazam announced that they were profitable in October 2009. Their investors include Accel, DN Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Acacia Capital Partners. [TechCrunch Europe]

Digimarc Corporation Is Suing Shazam Over Patents

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:46:53 +0000

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 Raising Additional Funds From Kleiner Perkins iFund

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:48:01 +0000

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.

Shazam: 35 Million Strong

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Anyone that owns an iPhone should have downloaded Shazam by now. Shazam is a free iPhone and T-Mobile G1 application that allows you to find out the name of the song that is playing near you. Ever since this past September, the company added 20 million users. Now they have 35 million users across the globe.

Shazam said that because of their accessibility across the globe, their user base grew substantially. Shazam is offered by 75 carriers over 70 countries. About 1 million tracks are being tagged per month. Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam stated that they expect them to have about 50 million users across the globe.

MySpace Launches App For Google Android

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:09:36 +0000

Although Facebook is not on board with the Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system quite yet, News Corporation (NYSE:NWS) subsidiary MySpace has joined the plight in the form of an application. The application will be available in the Android Market.

“MySpace users will love the new Android integration with cool features like instant photo uploading and access to the latest shows from their favorite bands,” stated John Faith, VP and GM of Mobile for MySpace. “We want to ensure that all users have access to their global MySpace network while they’re on-the-go, and we believe Android is a natural fit for an optimized MySpace Mobile experience.”

Through the MySpace Android application, users will be able to upload photos, view concert dates and tours of artists, comment on profiles, search/add friends, send/read messages, and update moods. Currently MySpace receives over 2 million unique visitors per day.

The MySpace application will be integrated with Shazam, a music download service and search engine. Anyone using Google Android will be able to put their phone near a song playing and MySpace will identify the artist and song through it’s partnership with Shazam. MySpace is also currently working on building a similar application for the Blackberry.