Carlos Slim Jams with Shazam To The Tune of $40 Million Dollars
You’re plugging away on your laptop, waiting for your unnecessarily hot tea to cool, and you decide to buy the song that’s playing on the coffee shop speakers – but you have no idea what the song is called or who wrote it. What do you do? If you answered “Ask the barista,” you clearly haven’t heard of Shazam. The smartphone app can “listen” to the song and give you details about it before your drink drops a degree. Having recently received a $40 million shot in the arm, the company’s prospects are looking good.
Shazam is available in three separate apps (for Android and iOS) that handle the way users pay differently (or don’t pay, in the free app). They all identify music the same way, though: the app uses the phone’s mic to record a portion of the music you’re listening to. The service then creates a fingerprint of the song and compares it to a database run by Shazam. If there’s a match, it brings you the details on the song, solving you “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” problem.
Shazam has expanded into the social network world, but it's still a song-identification app at its core. Image Credit: iTunes.
The investment comes from America Movil, which is owned by well-known businessman Carlos Slim. The telecom’s investment is meant to bolster Shazam’s advertising efforts and product development. The company’s previous round of funding led to successful advertising that brought Shazam’s user base to more than 350 million. Shazam is available in three separate apps (for Android and iOS) that handle the way users pay differently (or don’t pay, in the free app). They all identify music the same way, though: the app uses the phone’s mic to record a portion of the music you’re listening to. The service then creates a fingerprint of the song and compares it to a database run by Shazam. If there’s a match, it brings you the details on the song, solving you “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” problem.
