You might want to be nicer to Shazam, since it’s now valued at $1 billion

By Williams Pelegrin January 22, 2015

Shazam App Phone — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Shazam debuted back in the dark times of 2002 to help people figure of what song was playing, simply by holding your phone close to the source. As soon as the song was recognized, you would get a text message with the name of the song. Since then, Shazam has come a long way, with the Wall Street Journal reporting the company’s value now stands at $1 billion.

Shazam was rather successful in its latest round of funding, raking in $30 million. This works out to about a 3 percent stake in the company, which is where the $1 billion figure comes from. Consider this one statistic: In 2014, 100 million people used Shazam every month. That’s an increase from the 70 million in 2013. All of a sudden, Shazam’s success isn’t that surprising.

Even so, the latest public information shows Shazam actually lost money in the six months ending on December 31, 2013. Shazam lost $8.8 million on revenue of $25.6 million. However, Shazam is “intentionally not profitable” due to its constant reinvestments into new technology.

Shazam has grown up quite a bit since 2002. The music recognition service earns its keep from music downloads made through iTunes and other music services it sends users to, such as Rdio and Spotify. Shazam is also spreading its wings a bit, delving into the world of advertising. It will show promotional offers to those who walk into Office Depot or Office Max in the United States. Shazam might even reach a point where it will give more information to those who venture to the supermarket or watch a movie.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Music

Williams Pelegrin

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Williams is an avid New York Yankees fan, speaks Spanish, resides in Colorado, and has an affinity for Frosted Flakes. Send…

Mobile

Google now wants you to scroll forever on its Search for mobile

google search mobile

Continuous scrolling is synonymous with social media sites seeking to keep you on their app/website. Whether it's Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook -- all of them offer continuous scrolling so that you stay on their service for as long as possible. Now, Google wants you to endlessly scroll search results on its Search page for mobile. The company says the new change will make "browsing search results more seamless and intuitive."

From the explanation that Google has provided on its blog, it looks like Search on mobile will showcase more related results to open-ended questions like "What to cook with potatoes?" instead of simply showing you the results from the second page of the Search.

Mobile

Google Photos now shows more of the photos you want, fewer of the ones you don’t

Google Photos

Google detailed a selection of feature updates to Google Photos during the Google I/O 2021 keynote presentation, starting with an incredible statistic: There are 4 trillion photos and videos stored in Google Photos, an astonishing number, but the vast majority are never viewed.

Google is using A.I. to make sure the memories you’ve made and stored in Google Photos don’t get forgotten. It begins with an approach it calls Little Patterns. When it finds three or more photos that look similar, including shapes and colors, machine learning puts them together into a single story. Google showed a demonstration where it identified someone wearing a distinctive orange backpack, which was featured in multiple photos of a hiking tour, that was ready to be collected into a new story.

Deals

You need to order an iPad Air now if you want it to arrive for the holidays

An iPad Air (2020)n attached to a magic keyboard.

If you're looking to snag an iPad Air as a holiday gift for someone in your family, the good news is you can save $40 if you buy it in silver right now from Amazon. The new iPad Air is reduced from $599 to $559 with free delivery. But you had better act fast, because the shipping date is already two to four weeks out for this popular holiday item. It could reach four to six weeks by the end of the week, so you should buy it now if your goal is to wrap it up for Christmas. With some Black Friday deals, you can't afford to wait.
Buy Now

The new iPad Air features Apple's most powerful A14 Bionic chip, so you'll be able to edit 4K videos and play games with a 40% bump in CPU performance and a 30% improvement in graphics. The large 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display and stereo speakers in landscape mode provide a more comfortable experience streaming video, and the new 12MP rear camera has the capability to take high-resolution photos and 4K video. You still get a 7MP front-facing FaceTime HD camera as well, so your selfies won't suffer. A new USB-C port is 10x faster for connecting to 4K monitors, cameras, or hard drives.