Shazam

Shazam

A very popular music identification service from Shazam Entertainment Ltd., London, England (www.shazam.com) that lets cellphone users find out which commercially recorded song is currently playing from any loudspeaker (radio, TV, stereo, etc.). By holding the phone to the music for several seconds, the audio sample is sent to the Shazam datacenter, which compares it to a database of millions of song fingerprints (see acoustic fingerprint). See music search.

Shazam 2580
Available in the U.K. for any handset since 2002, users dial 2580 and take a music sample. Track title and artist name are sent back in a text message or optionally to the user's Facebook Profile. A fee is charged for each match or on a daily or monthly basis by joining a Tag Club.

ShazamiD
Available in the U.K. for a small monthly fee on Java-based cellphones, the ShazamiD application returns cover art, bios, reviews and links to purchase matched songs. The data can also be sent to the user's Facebook Profile.

Shazam on iPhone
A free app for the iPhone or iPod touch (with an external microphone) lets users hold their phone towards the music and click "Tag Now." Tagged songs can be purchased from the iTunes store, and tag data can be shared with friends who have their own Shazam collections. Cover art, artist bios, lyrics and YouTube links may also be available. Song samples can be stored for transmission later if a cellular data or Wi-Fi connection is unavailable. See iPhone.

Shazam on Android
A free app for the Android lets users tag their music and build their own soundtracks from purchases at Amazon's MP3 store. Cover art and a YouTube search link for the artist is provided as well as a link to the artist's MySpace page. See Android.

Tag Now on the iPhone

Clicking Tag Now on the iPhone causes Shazam to record the music and transmit a digital audio sample to the servers. In this example, after the song Miami was matched, the album cover and links to iTunes and YouTube were retrieved.