The coolest gadget I've seen all year is from Shazam Entertainment, which has developed technology that identifies music by listening to it. It works over cell phones, and in noisy cars and bars. But we won't be getting it here in the U.S.
Instead, we get Sony's eMarker (which reminds one of Xenote). This is a key fob with a button you press when you hear a song you like on the radio. EMarker notes the time, and when you download these timestamps into your PC, its Web site tells you what was playing. It only works on certain radio stations.
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Shazam actually compares the audio of songs to its own music database. I used my cell phone to call the London-based service, and it was able to identify a Cake tune I played from my computer, despite my office's dismal acoustics.
Revenue opportunities include percentages of Shazam-generated music sales, plus radio and television monitoring services. The service will roll out first in Europe and Japan, because in those markets Shazam can execute its primary plan of charging a fee per song identified. In the U.S. there's no established market for pay-per-use cell phone services. The company has raised $1 million to date. •
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