Why is Apple buying Shazam?

“Why has Apple confirmed it is ‘combining’ its business with that of the smaller London company [for a sum rumoured to be as much as $400m (£300m)]?Leo Kelion writes for BBC News. “There are several reasons the deal may have appealed.”

“Apple’s smart assistant, Siri, already taps into Shazam, allowing users to verbally ask: ‘What song is playing?’ and has done so for more than three years. But with growing competition between Apple Music and Spotify – which also ties into Shazam – Apple may have felt the need to secure the service rather than risk its Swedish rival or some other company buying it first,” Kelion writes. “Some, however, believe that the real value of the acquisition isn’t Shazam’s technology – which Apple could presumably have developed a version of itself for a smaller sum – but rather the data Shazam has gathered for more than a decade about its millions of users.”

“‘Spotify has made the discovery of new music front and centre of what makes it a compelling proposition,’ said Mark Mulligan, from the consultancy Midia Research,” Kelion writes. “‘Apple just doesn’t have the same amount of data about listening tastes as Spotify, meaning it can’t drive recommendations with as high a degree of accuracy and precision. Shazam essentially gives it a shortcut to having a massive database.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Shazam!

Certainly Shazam would be a very useful addition to the Apple Music family of products and services. Of course, you can currently ask Siri, “What’s this song?’ and you’ll get results from Shazam which you can buy from iTunes Store or listen to via Apple Music if you’re a member. We expect Apple might be interested in aspects of Shazam’s “Discover” music recommendation feature. — MacDailyNews, December 8, 2017

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Apple said to acquire music recognition service Shazam – December 8, 2017