Name That Tune With Verizon V Cast Song ID

Verizon's heavily hyped V Cast Song ID lets users identify music they like on the spot using their phones.

If you’ve ever heard a song you liked, only to miss the name and never hear it again, Verizon has a solution for you with its new V Cast Song ID feature. On certain phones, users can record a 10-second clip of a song, have it automatically identified, and optionally buy a copy of it for playback on a phone or computer.

Print and television have been saturated with advertising for the novel new service, but ads have mostly been short on details. For starters, Verizon customers will need to have a V Cast music-enabled phone to access the feature. This includes many phones in the current Verizon line-up, from the LG Chocolate all the way down to budget phones that can be had for free with a two-year contract, but owners of older phones may be out of luck.

If you have the right hardware, you’ll also need to download the Verizon V Cast Song ID application, which can be done right from the phone and costs nothing. Identifying a song with the software is free, but customers who decide to spring for the new tunes will pay a premium for the convenience – $1.99 for a single song. Compare this to 99 cents per song at the iTunes store.

"When customers have a choice of buying new songs from the PC and side-loading it to their phone, or to buy music spontaneously over-the-air, they choose immediacy almost every time,” said Verizon Wireless CEO Mike Lanman, in a statement. “Music lovers want their new songs now and V Cast Song ID helps make it happen when they don’t know the name or artist of the song."

There’s also a decent chance the song you want won’t be for sale. V Cast Song ID can pick out 4 million different songs, but only 1.5 million are actually available through the V Cast Music Store.

Whether you intend to buy songs or not, we’re guessing that V Cast Song ID is a lot handier than the old alternative of Googling song lyrics – if you have the right hardware and don’t mind fumbling with your phone for a bit.