Curious about what song is on the radio, or wondering what tune is causing people to bop
their heads at the bar? Then simply Shazam to find out!
Shazam is an application for smart phones that can identify a song after a few seconds of
recording. The London based company, Shazam Entertainment, has over 100 million users and
over 10 million tracks, in its database, according to the company’s website.
“Whenever I’m in the car and a song comes on the radio and I don’t know it, I literally
just push the Shazam button,” said freshman journalism major Kevin McLaughlin. “You can
even click ‘buy on iTunes,’ and buy it directly from Shazam.”
The application has several useful features beyond its ability to identify a song and its
complete information. Once a song is identified, the application can direct the user where to buy
it or watch the music video, and it keeps track of all the songs a user “Shazams.”
“One cool thing is it keeps track of all the ones you have Shazamed, so you can look back
at it,” said sophomore biology major Sarah Wright. “I think it’s smart.”
However, there are songs it fails to recognize due to interference or the song not being
in Shazam’s database. Wright thinks an improvement for the application would be frequent
updates, since new music is constantly topping the charts. This is definitely a goal of the
company.
Shazam employs “music sourcers,” people who go out to discover new music to add to
the company’s database.
“At Shazam, the music sourcers’ challenge goes beyond just getting a copy of the latest
single from Kanye West,” said an article in the New York Times. “Shazam also wants the latest
club tracks, Internet mix tapes and whatever is playing on college radio, anything that might
inspire curious listeners to pull out their phones and fire up the app.”
Shazam is constantly striving to ensure that if a user has any questions about a song, all
the answers can be found with the click of a button.