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Shazam Reaches Over 1.5 Million Downloads

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We've previously neglected to mention Shazam [App Store] here on MacRumors. Today's announcement by the company that over 1.5 million people have downloaded the iPhone app seemed like a good excuse to finally post something about the app.
“The Shazam iPhone application has had a phenomenal user response both in the number of downloads and the number of tracks being identified,” said Andrew Fisher, Shazam’s CEO. “The application taps into the user’s desire to discover, capture and share their music experiences and the success confirms our belief that music recognition will become a ubiquitous feature for all mobile phones in the future.”
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Shazam was one of the early favorites in the App Store that offered iPhone users a unique and free tool to identify music. If you've ever heard a song and wondered what the song was, this App is for you. Simply let Shazam listen to a piece of the song and it will identify the artist and track name. Songs are then linked automatically to YouTube videos and iTunes.

As a free download, there's really no reason not to try it out. App Store Link: Shazam

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/26/shazam-reaches-over-1-5-million-downloads/
Call me a simpleton, but I'm still so amazed each time it locates the song. It's only missed twice and a second listen found it both times. It even found live versions played off of YouTube when we were trying to stump it.
 
I'm forgetful. So when I'm driving along listening to my radio I only have to "tag" the song with Shazam and when I get home I can add the song to my play list on my iPhone or iPod.

Works like a charm! The application rarely misses!
 
Hmm- you guys have a different experience than I do, i guess. It seems it can only identify songs that I already happen to know.
 
I like to listen to music but im not one of those guys that memorize artist, album, or even name of songs. I just listen to music to pass the time... so this program is perfect for me if i ever wanna download a mp3 and i dont know the artist or name of song....
and i also like that sometimes it give you a youtube video of the song...

I wouldnt have mind paying for this app considering how much i use it... it shows you that even the best program can sometimes be free.

oh and it helps you with those radio station that ask you to identify the last 10 song.. artist and name... havent won any money yet ;p
 
it recognizes foreign music as well. I played hindi tracks off of a movie and it recognized, name of the song, singer, and movie its from. really good app
 
I've tried about a dozen times, and it was right every time (also tried Midomi, and it was wrong every time!).

I've even tried cover versions of songs - and I thought it would guess the original, but it even guessed the right version of the song. Great app. And on the usefulness/price value scale, it's.... a divide by zero! 😛
 
I've had 100% accuracy on all but the most obscure stuff--and very GOOD accuracy even on those! Non-English stuff, TV soundtracks, indie labels, you name it.

And it works even though I reduced the scan time from 12 seconds to 10, and even in situations with interference, like road noise, loud conversation, or music turned low while I'm on the other side of the road.

I even used it to listen to the music a friend was playing in the background during an iChat voice chat. It came through distorted and digital--really bad quality--and it was the beginning of a classical piece with just a long, slow swell of strings that could have been anything to my ear. And Shazam named the piece AND the specific performance, with album art!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

I use Shazam all the time!

When I get back to my computer, I can never remember the songs that I like on the radio (XM). I used to take pictures of the song/artist but now I just tag them.
 
well, maybe it's always been too noisy or something. Three tiems I actually needed it it failed, and the other miscellaneous times, it didn't do so hot. Of course, it has done all the common ones I played from itunes.

I still respect it in the morning.
 
Not as good as Midomi

Midomi has the features that Shazaam has plus a couple more options for searching for songs, including the ability to sing and have it recognize the song which works pretty well. Midomi is better than Shazaam.
 
The Tuck said:
Midomi has the features that Shazaam has plus a couple more options for searching for songs, including the ability to sing and have it recognize the song which works pretty well. Midomi is better than Shazaam.
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Midomi may have more features, but Shazam is MUCH better at doing the one thing it does: identify music. I'm still batting 1000 with Shazam, while Midomi got about half right when I used it (I've since deleted it from my iPhone for redundancy -- I have no interest in humming a song into my iPhone, which never worked for me anyway).

Shazam has never ceased to amaze me. There have been so many situations where I'm in a restaurant with loud chatter, and the feint sound of music playing, and my boyfriend pulls out his iPhone with Shazam -- and I always give him a warning: "There's no way that it's going to pick up what's playing." And sure enough, it does! I too have tried to stump it with covers or remixes, yet it always picks the right version. And I've even tried it during live performances, and it's always worked!!

Too bad for the developers that made this for free, as they certainly deserve some compensation for one of the most amazing apps for the iPhone!
 
My friend was playing a song through his intercom system not very loudly. But I was talking to him on Skype, and I put my iPhone up to the iMac speaker and it got the song even through the very low volume audio and the fact that it kept on breaking up.
 
madfresh said:
This app should have been on the iPhone before the app store came out.
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Damn straight! The tie-in with iTMS is another revenue opportunity for Apple. As for Shazam it-self... Speechless!!

A fantastic piece of kit!! It's black-magic at its finest - from a naff FM reception through to a VHS YouTube vid; it's spot-on each and everytime!

Damn you... Yet more money being spent!! 😛

I love it... 😀

p.s. Like so many others I've also had nil results from midomi...
 
I'm curious how Shazam is profiting from all of this. They don't appear to sell anything, nor is there any advertising on their website. Are they making money from the links into iTunes? If so, are the iTunes commissions great enough that it is really worth their time?
 
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