Application developer Shazam is extending its music identifying app to Research In Motion’s line of BlackBerry handsets in its newly launched BlackBerry App World, and asking consumers to pay for the traditionally free service. BlackBerry users will pay a one-time fee of $5 for the app after a 60-day free trial. They also have the option of continuing use of the free version, but will be limited to five songs per month and the ability to view their product history and buy products.
The service, which now has more than 35 million users, lets consumers use their handset to identify a song and then find more information or purchase the song if desired. It is most well-known as an iPhone app where more than five million consumers have downloaded it since it launched eight months ago, but the app also works on handsets from Verizon, T-Mobile, US Cellular and others. CEO Andrew Fisher said Shazam is currently identifying more than one million songs per day.
The business model change will only affect RIM handsets, but Fisher said he is looking to converge the pricing models over time. The app is also ad-supported, and Shazam makes money by selling music products in conjunction with the record labels it works with. The company plans to gauge consumers’ reactions to the new fee on BlackBerry before it makes any decisions. Shazam already has a click through rate of 10%, meaning one in 10 consumers who ID a song end up buying that track.
Shazam works with record labels in 85 countries, including four major labels and several independents. DJs that may play an unsigned band are also in Shazam’s database, he said. While other apps such as Midomi mobile, work to interpret consumers humming tunes, Fisher said Shazam is focused on recorded content to make sure the performance is accurate.
“You want to buy it from a specific band, and we can even tell you a different studio recording of the same track by a different artist,” Fisher said. “It needs to be recorded on the database. Humming technology is something we are aware of, there are a lot of features we look at and humming isn’t on priority list.”
Instead, on the priority list is extending device availability, supplementing its relationship with Napster for buying products on the PC and extending its Facebook sharing app to other social networks. The convergence between mobile music and social networking will be one of the biggest trends of the year, he said.
“Finding the name of the song and the opportunity to buy it is valuable, but we’ve seen with the Facebook app, that people want to shout out to their friends that they were the first to hear a song,” Fisher said. “Want that social currency that they are on the cutting edge and found it first. There is a great justification from the end user to say this is worth $5 to use this service.”
