SoundHound released an upgrade to its Android app, adding the ability to throw a tagged song into a Spotify playlist. Long-time users will say “Finally!” to the app refresh, which brings this essential feature in Android up to parity with SoundHound for iOS. Continue Reading
Music-ID app Shazam announced a mobile app refresh in its ongoing (unspoken) battle with SoundHound for user loyalty. Charts and listening are the two pillars on which the new Shazam rests. Continue Reading
Shazam jumped on the bandwagon of 2014 roundups with a listing of the top tracks and artists tagged in the song ID program. The findings fell pretty well in line with what Spotify and other music services have been reporting, but Shazam added some interesting predictions to its blog post by noting some of the artists it expects to break out in 2015. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Slacker Radio prepares for in-car listening; pre-1972 chaos predicted by attorney; Bob Lefsetz rips Billboard’s new hybrid album chart. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Steve Albini on music and the Internet; Samsung launches Milk Video in U.S.; Shazam as hit-tracker. Continue Reading
Shazam has moved into the broadcast realm thanks to a partnership with Southern Cross Austereo. The parties have created a nightly show called Shazam Top 20 that will count down the most-tagged songs in Australia. According to the press release, fans who have the Shazam app on their phones will be directly influencing the charts. Calling the arrangement “a world-first,” Shazam’s APAC Sales Director Steve Sos said that the fan-guided radio show was a natural extension of the sound-identification app’s service. Continue Reading
Shazam belatedly shared its financial information from the second half of 2013. In that six-month period, the music ID program reported pre-tax losses of £5.3 million, up from losses of £1.3 million for the whole of 2012. Revenue for the second half of 2013 totaled £16.9 million, down from £31 million during the first half of that year. Continue Reading
Shazam’s Android app now has integrations with Google Play and Google Play Music All Access. The Android marketplace is now the featured resource for buying a track tagged in Shazam. Google’s on-demand music service joins Rdio, Spotify, and Deezer as ways to stream a song you’ve identified. The streaming networks are all visible by tapping the drop-down menu with the play button icon. Continue Reading
comScore’s U.S. Mobile App Report covers some interesting ground in how people are (and aren’t) using their smartphones and tablets. Activity on mobile devices makes up 60 percent of digital media time in the U.S. The majority of that digital media is consumed through apps; those programs account for 52 percent of the country’s digital media time. Continue Reading
Shazam recently announced that it has more than 100 million monthly active users, with 34 percent growth in that metric since July 2013. The music identification app has been downloaded more than half a billion times. VentureBeat reported that Shazam’s tagging feature drives 400,000 digital download sales daily. Continue Reading
SoundHound announced that it has launched a new feature called Connect to Rdio. This update automatically adds all songs that a SoundHound user discovers to a special playlist within Rdio. Before this update, SoundHound already had tie-ups with several streaming platforms. This particular Rdio news, though, is similar to an announcement made by Shazam in July. Continue Reading
Market-leading music-identification app Shazam has added Spotify to its list of music services that will play full tracks identified by Shazam. The updated app can hook into Rdio (in a longer-standing relationship), Beats Music, and Spotify. Continue Reading