Shazam Limits Free iPhone App, Adds $5 App

Shazam, which names songs by listening to a clip that’s playing on the radio or stereo, is one of the most popular cellphone applications to date — and one of the rare few to turn a profit. It’s been downloaded more than 10 million times and has sold out its inventory of advertising space, according to maker Shazam Entertainment. After listening to and identifying the song that’s playing, Shazam also links to iTunes, taking a cut from the fee people pay to download songs from Apple.

However, Shazam says it makes most of its money by selling the app to paying customers, such as on BlackBerry smart phones or through deals with carriers such as Verizon , chief executive Andrew Fisher said.

“When we started, we charged for the product,” he said, adding that the free iPhone version was a “departure.”

Shazam had hoped that mobile advertising and iTunes downloads would sustain the free app, but with the recession, that has not happened. The company is now fixing that detour by tacking on a $5 charge (like all paid app downloads from its App Store, Apple keeps 30% of the charge). Mr. Fisher says mobile advertising was one of the first victims of the recession, and he doesn’t expect ad rates to bounce to levels to sustain free apps for at least two years.

A free version of Shazam will still remain on the iPhone, but it will only name up to five songs a month. To get more, customers will have to cough up for the premium edition. Existing Shazam users, however, can keep using their free, unlimited versions.

“Historically, people have been conditioned to pay for applications,” Mr. Fisher said. He said he doesn’t know how many people will download the premium version. It adds music recommendations, top-hits charts and a search feature to look up a song by name or artist.

[via Wall Street Journal]

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Shazam: find which song is playing with your iPhone for free

This free iPhone app identifies songs that you play to it and then tells you what they are.

If you have ever wondered about the name of a song on radio, or wanted to know the name of the band whose song is playing in a store then Shazam is for you. This free iPhone app records a snippet of a song then identifies it.

To get started, you simply need to click the "Tag Now" button on the top-right of the screen. Shazam will then record a 10-second sample of a song using the iPhone's microphone. The app encodes the sample and sends it to the Shazam servers. If the song is recognised, you will get a results screen with a picture of the album cover and the name of the artist, the song and the album.

You can't identify all songs. Shazam will normally only recognise songs that have been released on an album or as a single. Live music won't be recognised and neither will whistling or humming. If there is too much noise around you, the app may also have difficulty. You will usually have enough time to get a second sample and have another attempt at identifying the music.

Shazam keeps a record of the songs you have tagged, and has a small wizard which lets you sort in different orders, such as by tagging date or by artist name.

[via PC World]

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Free iPhone App Shazam Takes the Cake

It seems like just yesterday 2.0 firmware was upon us and the iPhone App Store was the coolest thing ever. iPhone app developers keep on creating quality apps (even though there are some real POS apps out there too) that help keep our iPhones fresh and exciting.

Over at BestAppEver.com, they recently had people vote for what was their favourite app in a variety of categories. The one app that did the most damage by sweeping a variety of categories was Shazam (listed in our Top 5 Must Have Apps list).

Shazam was the cream of the crop in the categories of Best Overall, Most Innovative, and Best WOW. I must agree that Shazam is one of my favourite apps because it works exactly as advertised when trying to identify any song out there.

The winner for the Most Useful App was Air Sharing and the Best Free App was the ebook reader, Stanza. Personally, I would have chosen TwitterFon or Fring as some of my top free apps.

Read the whole article @ iPhone in Canada

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iPhone drives Shazam usage

Music discovery specialist sees huge uplift in traffic from iPhone version of its service.

Shazam is reaping the rewards from its free iPhone app, with average usage ballooning to up to 20 interactions a month compared to three-to-five times a lifetime on regular handsets.

The company, which enables people to identify music they are listening to and then follow links to either buy or share a song, has already seen the iPhone version of its service downloaded 1.5 million times from App Store.

Speaking in a Reuters video report, Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher said: "On average we were seeing people use our service three-to-five times over their lifetime.

Read the whole article @ Mobile Entertainment

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Favorite Free iPhone App Of The Day - Shazam!

There are a LOT of free apps in the iTunes App Store — enough to keep a fella busy downloading and trying tons of new stuff each day! All in all, the App Store is a welcome addition to the iPhone life, even if syncing all those apps is a drawn out process each time you hook up.

Complaining aside, here’s the pick for Favorite Free iPhone App of the Day: Shazam!

Shazam bills themself as the ‘amazing music discovery engine,’ and I would say after just a few minutes of monkeying around with the app, that I concur. It is pretty amazing. According to the website, here are the key features and functionality of the application:

Already an industry standard, Shazam fully integrates with and complements the iPhone’s native environment, allowing you to seamlessly discover, buy and share tunes simply by holding your iPhone to music for just a few seconds.

• Tag music: identify music anywhere - whether it’s on the radio, TV, in a movie or in a store.
• Build your own soundtrack: see the list grow every time music is tagged.
• Get the music: go straight to iTunes to preview and buy.
• Music Videos: see related videos of the track on YouTube.
• Capture the moment: personalise the tag by taking a photo and adding it to ‘My Tags’.
• Share the moment: send track details to friends via email.

Read the whole article @ Tweak OSX

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