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Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

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Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the lauding of Shazam, but I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I've always viewed Shazam as a novelty and have installed and uninstalled it a few random times, but as Jobs would say it seems like a feature not a product.

As a DJ constantly looking for tracks to add to the collection. I listen to streaming music pretty constantly. For individual tracks with all of the metadata, the artist/track name info is provided. For listening to other DJ mixes, you just get the DJ name and mix name. Shazam tells me the specific track. I also use My Shazams as a potential mix list. If I have an item in My Shazams, it caught my attention for some r…

>As a DJ constantly looking for tracks to add to the collection. I listen to streaming music pretty constantly. For individual tracks with all of the metadata, the artist/track name info is provided. For listening to other DJ mixes, you just get the DJ name and mix name. Shazam tells me the specific track.

So a pretty narrow demographic for the feature though...

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#223
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the lauding of Shazam, but I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I've always viewed Shazam as a novelty and have installed and uninstalled it a few random times, but as Jobs would say it seems like a feature not a product.

This "feature not a product" belief only makes sense if you pretend that the product doesn't provide the answer sought by its primary user and as byproduct produces a truly real-time stream/map of what music-enjoying people are interested in finding out more about. This data would be incredibly valuable to companies trying to market and sell music. Like labels, and now, Apple. Not to mention keeping that data now out…

>This "feature not a product" belief only makes sense if you pretend that the product doesn't provide the answer sought by its primary user

It also makes sense if the scope of the product is not enough for it to make anyone pay for it (except as part of a larger product).

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the lauding of Shazam, but I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I've always viewed Shazam as a novelty and have installed and uninstalled it a few random times, but as Jobs would say it seems like a feature not a product.

I can't speak for who you're replying to, but I find myself using it at restaurants, bars, and public locations where music is playing, as well as friends' cars, and other social gatherings. I know these sort of situations are rare for the average HN user.

They're also rare for anyone over 30 to care about (if not the situations themselves, what some random soundtrack to them is). Give it time...

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the lauding of Shazam, but I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I've always viewed Shazam as a novelty and have installed and uninstalled it a few random times, but as Jobs would say it seems like a feature not a product.

I can't speak for who you're replying to, but I find myself using it at restaurants, bars, and public locations where music is playing, as well as friends' cars, and other social gatherings. I know these sort of situations are rare for the average HN user.

I don't go out much, but when I do, most music I've experienced seems to be tolerable at best and ear-assault at worst. I can only think of maybe 2 or 3 times in the past decade where I've heard music in a public location and was interested enough to want to know what song it was.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#228
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, and I work in music audio signal processing. Shazam was founded in 1999-2000 ish and was live by 2002, longer ago than many people realise. The fingerprinting method they used was a novel one, and they successfully deployed it in a couple of years, with a database of two million tracks, in a system that could be used by dialling a number from any phone. It's an extraordinary and rare example of taki…

THAT is the kind of startup I wish I could work for.

Me too. Are there any similar startup with functional prototypes or products? Something like Shazam, or Theranos if it were actually legitimate and had a working product.

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#229
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Shazam was the last Zero to One moment I had with Tech. A true, visceral in-the-moment 'wow' that no social media giant or app has come close to emulating. The user value to time investment ratio is off the charts for Shazam. I love music and what they have done for it, especially in the context of other music apps like Spotify et al. Second the Don't Ruin It Apple plea, but congrats to the creators on a well-d…

Google Now natively supports song detection in surroundings. It is also pretty good at it, and Google will do it passively without ever needing to open it as an app. I used Shazam a long time ago, so dunno how it had changed, but it certainly isn't a novel idea.

Google Now won't detect music for you outside the US (Shazam does)

Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam

#230
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Shazam was the last Zero to One moment I had with Tech. A true, visceral in-the-moment 'wow' that no social media giant or app has come close to emulating. The user value to time investment ratio is off the charts for Shazam. I love music and what they have done for it, especially in the context of other music apps like Spotify et al. Second the Don't Ruin It Apple plea, but congrats to the creators on a well-d…

Google Now natively supports song detection in surroundings. It is also pretty good at it, and Google will do it passively without ever needing to open it as an app. I used Shazam a long time ago, so dunno how it had changed, but it certainly isn't a novel idea.

  and Google will do it passively without ever needing to open it as an app.
Listening 24/7 isn't a privacy invasion at all.
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