I was down at Platekompaniet looking for some new CDs, and I heard a cool song being played as I entered the shop, and got thinking of one application that I have on my iPhone. I fired up Shazam and made it listen to the song playing. Within half a minute the song was recognized and the album presented to me. I could then go to the staff for a private listening.

Shazam

And yes, I ended up buying the album. To make the tool even more useful, the results page includes shortcuts to the iTunes WiFi Muic Store, allowing you to buy the song directly from your phone, and to related content at YouTube.

The Shazam application enables you to tap into a vast database of nearly 5 million tracks giving instant satisfaction for those times when you want to know the tune that is playing, learn more about the artist, buy the song immediately – or simply add it to your playlist.

Shazam

Shazam doesn’t only work on iPhones, but also other mobile phones. The company has their headquarters in London, U.K., but have their service running in 45 countries, by more than 50 mobile carriers. The service is currently available to over 500 million mobile phone users worldwide. In U.K. the Shazam is used in the following way, you “Shazam music” by calling 2580 from your mobile phone, your network operator standard call charges will apply (calls usually cost no more than £0.12 max) and the results are sent to you as SMS. Each successful identification costs £0.50, including VAT (unless you are a subscriber to Tag Club which gives you up to 300 successful Tags for £2/30 day month). A social web site is built up around the service, listing various charts and reviews.

The Raveonettes