Shazam: Apple subsidiary has identified a record number of tracks
Shazam has identified a total of 100 billion songs since 2002. The service was launched 22 years ago via SMS.
Shazam logo with query sum: Quite a lot of tracks.
(Image: Apple)
A milestone anniversary for the London-based company Shazam, which has been part of Apple since 2018: last week, the company managed to perform its one hundred billionth music recognition. This is a new record and means that, in purely mathematical terms, up to 12 songs have been recognized by every person on the planet. The most frequently recognized song – with 45 million "tags" – was "Dance Monkey" by Tones And I, followed by "Somebody That I Used to Know" (Gotye) and "Let Her Go" by Passenger.
Included in (almost) all Apple products
According to Shazam, it currently has 300 million monthly active users. The service is also deeply integrated into Apple's ecosystem, including iOS, iPadOS and macOS. The company offers its own apps for other platforms. Since the iPhone 15 and the Apple Watch Ultra, it has also been possible to assign recognition to the action button on Apple devices in order to recognize tracks even faster. It is also possible to let the recognition run, for example to detect songs from the radio.
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Shazam has a very long history. The company was founded back in 2002 by researchers from Stanford and MBA students in Berkeley. Back then, it was still archaic to use: you called a hotline and then held the phone up to a loudspeaker. After 30 seconds, the recognition was supposed to be complete, and the track and artist were then sent by text message. When the app age began with the iPhone, Shazam was also available as smartphone software. Finally, the company was taken over and integrated by Apple six years ago.
Satisfying the appetite for new music
The integration is considered successful – Like Apple's biggest acquisition to date, Beats –, Shazam works relatively independently, but is supported by Apple in all relevant areas. For example, after recognition, you can look directly in Apple Music to see whether a track is available for download or streaming. Oliver Schusser, Apple Music boss, said in a statement that the 100 billion recognized tracks are a "monumental milestone" that shows how many people like to use Shazam – and at the same time people's appetite for new music.
In addition to curation on services such as Apple Music or Spotify –, the service actually helps – to recognize songs listened to in everyday life without a long time delay and then add them to their own media library. Its direct competitors include Soundhound. Over the years, Shazam has become better and better at recognition, and it is now relatively rare for tracks not to be "matched".
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