Shazam's user base has grown by 25 million in the last six months, thanks in part to its decision to expand from music identification into areas like television and advertising.
The service launched 10 years ago, but it really wasn't until its iPhone app was released in 2008 that it really started to take off. Users hold the app up to a piece of audio and Shazam's audio recognition engine identifies the track, lets users add their own tags, share and purchase tracks.
Shazam now has apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and Windows Phone 7. It has also expanded from only being a music service to also working with television and advertising content. Going forward, this seems to be a big part of its long-term strategy. In essence, what Shazam wants to do is build a network of audio QR codes.
Companies like HBO, NBC Universal and Levi's Dockers have all partnered with the service to add supplementary content to television programming or advertising. So instead of just finding out the identity of a song, users can unlock more information about a brand or TV show.
Expanding into other verticals certainly makes sense, especially as more and more competition, including apps like SoundHound [iTunes link], now exist in the audio recognition space.