Tuesday, February 9, 2010

iPhone App: Shazam

This app is truly a must-have for any music lover. It’s definitely one of my favorite apps. If you hear a song you like on the radio, in a commercial, in a restaurant - anywhere the music is loud enough for your iPhone microphone to pick it up - just point your iPhone mic towards the music and press Tag Now. Shazam “listens” to a few seconds of the song, then tries to identify the song for you.

If Shazam finds the song, it brings up a screen with the name of the song, the artist, the name of the album it's on, the artist's music label, the date and your location when you tagged the item. From there you can perform a number of functions such as:

  • Play a sample of the song.
  • Go to iTunes where you can buy and download the song.
  • Post info about the song you just tagged to your Twitter and/or Facebook pages.
  • Send a Postcard (e-card) to your friends via e-mail to share info about the tagged song so they can listen to it on iTunes and buy it.
  • Read a biography of the artist.
  • View a discography of the artist's work.
  • View the video for the song on YouTube, if one exists. (This doesn't always work- sometimes some random video comes up, or a video that's not the “official” one.)
Cost: Free. For $4.99, you can get Shazam Encore or Shazam Red, which offer even more features.

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