Shazam (music App)
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Shazam is an application that can identify
music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
based on a short sample played using the microphone on the device. It was created by the British company Shazam Entertainment, based in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, and has been owned by
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
since 2018. The software is available for Android,
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,
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
, Wear OS,
watchOS watchOS is the operating system of the Apple Watch, developed by Apple Inc., Apple. It is based on iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone, and has many similar features. It was released on April 24, 2015, along with the Apple Watch, the o ...
and as a
Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...
extension. The original UK developer of the app, Shazam Entertainment Limited, was founded in 1999 by Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, Avery Wang, and Dhiraj Mukherjee. On 24 September 2018, the company was acquired by Apple for a reported $400 million.


Overview

Shazam identifies
songs A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usuall ...
using an audio fingerprint based on a time-frequency graph called a
spectrogram A spectrogram is a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies of a signal as it varies with time. When applied to an audio signal, spectrograms are sometimes called sonographs, voiceprints, or voicegrams. When the data are represen ...
. It uses a smartphone or computer's built-in microphone to gather a brief sample of the audio being played. Shazam stores a catalogue of audio fingerprints in a database. The user records a song for 10 seconds and the application creates an audio fingerprint. Shazam works by analyzing the captured sound and seeking a match based on an acoustic fingerprint in a database of millions of songs. If it finds a match, it sends information such as the artist, song title, and album back to the user. Some implementations of Shazam incorporate relevant links to services such as
iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
,
Apple Music Apple Music is an audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users can select music to stream to their device on-demand, or listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the sister internet radio stations Apple Musi ...
,
Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
,
YouTube Music YouTube Music is a music streaming service developed by the American video platform YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. The service is designed with an interface that allows users to simultaneously explore music audios and music videos from YouTu ...
, or Groove Music. Shazam can identify music being played from any source, provided that the background noise level is not high enough to prevent an acoustic fingerprint from being taken, and that the song is present in the software's database. The company released a paid app called Shazam Encore, which was discontinued when the company was bought by Apple in 2018. In September 2012, the service was expanded to enable TV users in the US to identify featured music, access cast information, and get links to show information online, as well as added social networking capabilities. In 2014, Shazam redesigned its app and added features.


History

Shazam Entertainment Limited was founded in 1999 by Chris Barton and Philip Inghelbrecht, who were MBA students at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, and Dhiraj Mukherjee, who worked at a London-based internet consulting firm called
Viant Viant Inc. was a multinational Internet consulting firm, founded in San Francisco in April 1996, that was one of the first web consulting firms during the early stages of the Internet era. History The company was founded by Eric Greenberg, Duc ...
. In need of a
digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are a ...
specialist, the founding team then hired Avery Wang, who had received his
PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
from
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
.


2002–2006: Early days

Initially, in 2002, the service was launched only in the UK and was known as "2580", as the number was the short code that customers dialled from their mobile phone to get music recognized. The phone would automatically hang up after 30 seconds. A result was then sent to the user in the form of a text message containing the song title and artist name. At a later date, the service also began to add hyperlinks in the text message to allow the user to download the song online. Shazam launched in the US on the
AT&T Wireless AT&T Mobility, LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. Formed in April 2000 as Cingular Wireless LLC, It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless serv ...
network in 2004 in a joint offering with Musicphone, a now defunct San Francisco-based company. The service was free at launch with AT&T saying that it would charge $0.99 for each use in the future. In 2006, users were charged £0.60 per call or had unlimited use for £4.50 a month, as well as an online service to keep track of all tags.


2006–2017: Smartphone app and expansion

Shazam first became available as an app in 2006 exclusively on the Amp'd Mobile cellular service. Shazam for iPhone debuted on 10 July 2008, with the launch of Apple's App Store. The free app enabled users to launch iTunes and buy the song directly, although the service struggled to identify classical music. Shazam launched on the Android platform on 30 October 2008, and on the Windows Mobile Marketplace a year later. Encore first appeared for the iPhone in November 2009. In December 2009, Shazam was downloaded ten million times in 150 countries across 350 mobile operators. Around eight percent of users purchased a track after it was identified by the service. Its success led to a funding round from
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...
in October 2009. In January 2011, Apple announced that Shazam was the fourth most downloaded free app of all time on the App Store, while rival SoundHound had the top paid iPad app. In August 2012, Shazam announced the service had been used to tag five billion songs, TV shows and advertisements. In addition, Shazam claimed to have over 225 million users across 200 countries. A month later, the service claimed to have more than 250 million users with two million active users per week. In 2014, the app announced it had 100 million monthly active users and over 500 million downloads. In October 2014, Shazam announced its technology had been used to identify 15 billion songs. The Shazam app was listed among Techland's 50 Best Android Applications for 2013. In August 2014, Shazam announced there would be no more updates for Shazam(RED) after 7 August.Important News About Shazam(RED)
– Shazam Support
Apple's launch of iOS 8 in September 2014 came with the integration of Shazam into Apple's virtual assistant
Siri Siri ( , backronym: Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) is a digital assistant purchased, developed, and popularized by Apple Inc., which is included in the iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, Apple TV, audioOS, and visionOS operating sys ...
. In February 2013, Shazam announced a partnership with the music store
Beatport Beatport is an American electronic music-oriented online music store owned by LiveStyle. The company is based in Denver, Los Angeles, and Berlin. Beatport is oriented primarily towards disk jockey, DJs, selling full songs as well as resources that ...
, adding its library of
electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
to the service. On 3 April 2013 Shazam announced an exclusive partnership with Saavn, an Indian online music streaming service. The deal added nearly 1 million songs in Indian languages to Shazam's database. In July 2014, Shazam announced a partnership with Rdio that allows Shazam users to stream full songs within the app. In May 2015, Shazam was launched on Wear OS (formerly Android Wear). Rich Riley joined Shazam as CEO in April 2013. after over 13 years at
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Riley replaced Andrew Fisher, who was hired from Infospace into the CEO role in 2005 to strengthen industry partnerships and grow the userbase. Fisher is now executive chairman. In addition to music, Shazam has announced collaborations with partners across television, advertising and cinema. In May 2014,
National CineMedia National CineMedia, Inc. (NCM) is an American movie theater, cinema advertising company. NCM displays ads to U.S. consumers in movie theaters, online and through mobile technology. NCM presents cinema advertising across a digital in-theater netwo ...
announced a partnership with Shazam to incorporate Shazam into FirstLook pre-show segments that run in Regal,
AMC AMC may refer to: Film and television * AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain * AMC Networks, an American entertainment company ** AMC (TV channel) ** AMC+, streaming service ** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company *** ...
and Cinemark cinemas. In November 2014, NCM and Shazam announced that NCM FirstLook pre-shows are now Shazam enabled on over 20,000 movie screens across the United States. In August 2014, Shazam announced the launch of Resonate, a sales product that allows TV networks to access its technology and user base. The news included the announcement of partnerships with AMC, A&E,
Dick Clark Productions Dick Clark Productions, LLC (DCP, stylized in lowercase as dick clark productions or dcp) is an American multinational television production company founded by radio and TV host Dick Clark. The studio primarily produces Awards ceremony, award sh ...
and Fuse. Shazam announced a 2015 partnership with Sun Broadcast Group on Shazam for Radio, a new offering that will allow radio stations to push customised content to listeners on Sun Broadcast's over 8,000 radio stations in the US. In December 2016, Shazam announced a partnership with social media application
Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia social media and instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of the app are that pictures and messages, known as "snaps", are usually availa ...
. The new feature comes as part of the latest Snapchat update and integration with Shazam, which allows Snapchat users to use Shazam's Music information retrieval technology by pressing and holding the camera screen. Shazam first made a profit in 2016, 16 years after its founding and 14 years after its product launch.


2018–present: Subsidiary of Apple Inc.

In December 2017,
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...
announced its acquisition of Shazam for a reported $400 million (£300 million). On 23 April 2018 the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
stated that it would be reviewing the acquisition. The European Commission approved the acquisition on 6 September 2018 and the deal was completed on 24 September 2018.


Funding

Shazam's initial $7.5M in venture capital investment, in September 2001, came from Lynx New Media, IDG Ventures Europe, and FLV, a Belgian speech-recognition investment fund. In September 2012, Shazam raised a US$32 million round of funding. In July 2013,
América Móvil América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican telecommunications corporation headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the 7th largest mobile network operator in the world in terms of equity subscribers, as well as one of the largest corpor ...
invested US$40 million in Shazam for an undisclosed share, which helped put their technology in the hands of millions of users in Latin America. In March 2014, Shazam confirmed another US$20 million in new funding, raising the total value of the company to US$500 million. The company's earlier backers include European
venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
firm DN Capital, which invested in Shazam in 2004.


Patent infringement lawsuit

In May 2009, Tune Hunter accused Shazam of violating , which covers music identification and purchase in a portable device. Shazam settled the case in January 2010.


See also

* ACRCloud * Axwave * ''
Beat Shazam ''Beat Shazam'' is an American television musical game show which premiered on Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox on May 25, 2017. The show is hosted by Jamie Foxx, who is also an executive producer on the show along with Jeff Apploff (who created th ...
'', a television game show where contestants compete to identify songs faster than the app * Bing Audio identification * Firefly by Amazon * Gracenote * Sony TrackID * SoundHound


References


Further reading

* *


External links

* – official site
Shazam
– track ranking at
Apple Music Apple Music is an audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users can select music to stream to their device on-demand, or listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the sister internet radio stations Apple Musi ...
* * {{Apple Inc. Entertainment companies established in 1999 British companies established in 1999 Products introduced in 2002 Acoustic fingerprinting Android (operating system) software Apple Inc. acquisitions Apple Inc. software BlackBerry software IOS software Symbian software Music search engines Windows Phone software Universal Windows Platform apps Wear OS software WatchOS software 2018 mergers and acquisitions Apple Inc. services Mobile music apps