A new service from mobile music recognition group Shazam will enable us to 'tag' songs we like and send 30-second clips to other mobile users
Shazam, the mobile music recognition company that enables people to use their mobile phones to identify the artist and titles of pop songs, will next spring launch a new service allowing customers to send 30-second music clips to one another over their mobiles.
The service, called Songmail, will allow consumers to "tag" a tune the like and, by dialling 2584, send a 30-seocnd audio clip of the song via SMS with a personalised recorded message. The recipient will receive a text message with instructions explaining how to retrieve the soundclip and greeting.
So far, Shazam has only copyright agreements in place with Warner Music and 400 independent labels, through trade body, AIM. However, it says it should have agreements with the remaining major record companies by spring 2003, so that almost any song will be able to be sent through this service.
Songmail builds on Shazam's core offering - a song-identification service that is activated when consumers dial 2580 and hold their phone towards the music source for 30 seconds. Users then receive an SMS with the name of the song and artist that the have "tagged".
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Vijay Solanki, marketing director for Shazam, argues that Songmail, which will cost between 60p and £1 per use, has the potential to become an important promotional tool for new music, as more than half of the music that Shazam customers tag is pre-release material. For example, one of the tracks that has regularly topped Shazam's tag chart during the past month or so is yet-to-be-released "Mundian Tu Bach Ke" (by Punjabi MC). Solanki says that the exposure of such music could increase if music fans are able to sent clips to one another.
Shazam says that 150,000 users have tried out its basic service since its launch in August, three-quarters of them 18- to 34-year-old men, and Songmail is the first of several new services the company plans to add. "In the future, you should be able to identify some music and order it through your phone. With 3G, you will theoretically be able to download the song to your phone as soon as it is identified," says Solanki.
Shazam currently has a partnership with Amazon to act as its online retailer, enabling consumers to purchase onle the CD of any song identified through the service. The London-based company has a database of more than 1.6m tracks - each of which is electronically analysed to create a unique fingerprint based on various characteristics of the music •
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