The media discovery and recommendation engine Shazam at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on Monday said it surpassed 300 million users and announced updates to its app for iPad and Android tablets in the coming weeks. Some of the newly added capabilities include a much faster tagging with automatic resubmissions (handy during poor network reception), better Shazam Friends interactions and a new streamlined way to share your finds via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email.
Also on tap for iPad and Android tablets: a revamped home screen with updated layouts for tagged results from TV and music and a brand new interactive mapping feature letting you see what people aroun the world are discovering and sharing using Shazam mobile apps. What’s best, Shazam is now providing the two premium features – fast (and unlimited) tagging in as little as one second and full-screen LyricPlay lyrics – as part of the free tablet experience…
Shazam said the refreshed iPad and Android tablet versions won’t be available until the coming weeks. In addition to music discovery, Shazam can also tag television shows in the United States and the company says most users turn to its tablet apps to interact with television.
Some of the key new features:
• an exciting new design featuring an innovative home screen that invites exploration to see what TV shows* and music people are currently tagging, as well as find out what’s most popular in the Shazam Tag Charts.
• an interactive mapping feature, enabling fans to zoom in to any city in the world to discover, buy and share the most popular music people are listening to in that location – starting at the continent level, then drilling down into the country, state/region, city and even to the town level, in some cases;
• an improved Shazam Friends feature, providing people with one of the best ways to discover new music and media from their friends as well as giving them quick access to preview and comment on their friends’ tags;
• lightning-fast tagging, so that people can identify what they’re watching or listening to in as little as one second;
• sharing that’s easier than ever, including a streamlined way to tell your friends about your finds via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email; and,
• automatic resubmission. If people are in a poor network reception area, they no longer have to manually resubmit their tags when they get to a better reception area. Resubmission will happen automatically, and the user will be notified.
A free Shazam app is available from the App Store and Google’s Play Store. There is also a paid for iOS and Android client called Shazam Encore that comes without advertising and includes a few premium features.
Shazam claims its iPad app over the past months has been seeing triple-digit growth in the number of downloads. Users especially turn to the app as their second-screen companion device while watching television, the company said.
A media release states that the new version of Shazam for iOS is a universal app, so it works with iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices. Previously, iPhone and iPad versions were two separate builds.
While Shazam in December 2012 overhauled the iPhone and iPod touch build with the new interface, standard iOS 6 Sharing Sheets, offline fingerprinting for later matching and other under-the-hood tweaks, these devices will gain the new interactive mapping feature in the upcoming release.
Shazam is still my favorite music discovery thing and I’m using it regularly to discover what songs are playing around me.
What’s your experience with Shazam so far?