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from the I-can-name-that-tune-in-2-notes-—-Gomer-Pyle-USMC dept.
Apple is buying music recognition service Shazam. The Shazam app basically uses your microphone to listen to a snippet of whatever music is being played in your vicinity, identify the song, and store it along with a timestamp. But the company was also working on visual recognition technology similar to Google Lens:
Apple is finalizing a deal to acquire Shazam, the app that lets you identify songs, movies, and TV shows from an audio clip, according to TechCrunch. The deal is reportedly for $400 million, according to Recode, which also confirmed the news.
For Apple, the obvious benefit of acquiring Shazam is the company's music and sound recognition technologies. It will also save some money on the commissions Apple pays Shazam for sending users to its iTunes Store to buy content, which made up the majority of Shazam's revenue in 2016, and drove 10 percent of all digital download sales, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A side benefit is if Apple decides to shut down the app, it will hurt competing streaming services like Spotify and Google Play Music, where Shazam sends over 1 million clicks a day, the WSJ reported. Shazam also has a deal with Snapchat. It's unclear how the acquisition will affect any of these agreements.
Related: The Shazam Effect
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:32PM
Shazam has been on Apple and Android for like forever, and they used to be good until they packed it full of ads a few years ago, at which point it seems like everyone abandoned them for other similar solutions. Google Baked it into their Google Now (aks "Ok Google") app which they then proceeded to break and fix several times over the years. Sound-Hound outperformed Shazam and then proceeded to add annoying Ads on the notifications. A dozen streaming music services have added this capability to their apps.
This is an app most people will use once or twice a year. None of them will never launch quick enough to capture that fleeting background music, and most are totally stymied by a live performance or even a substitute drummer.
Why did Apple need to buy Shazam for their technology? It wasn't that great, they had no unique secrets, and that ship has sailed.
Recode also recoprts that
When a company has been around for 15 years and is still raising money with "rounds of funding" (venture capitalists) rather than earning it, you can much guess that the product is going nowhere. You can bet the owners are breathlessly whispering "Thank you Jesus" for this offer, because they were losing money and swirling the drain.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.