Written by Shazam is one of the most popular smartphone apps of all time. Most people know it as that interesting app that “listens” to a song and identifies the name of it, but what’s more interesting is Shazam’s increasing focus on television.
Since early 2010, Shazam has been gradually implementing and trialling TV-focused content in its app. The company is aiming squarely at the lucrative second screen app market. These are smartphone or tablet apps that interact with your television, as a “second screen” to navigate extra content for TV shows.
How Shazam For TV Works
When you see the Shazam logo pop up on a TV program (see screenshot above), you can open the Shazam app on your smartphone and access extra content. The latest TV show that Shazam has “enabled” for this extra content is Covert Affairs, on the USA network. The content available through the Shazam app includes episode information and video, character details and a Florence & The Machine song that featured in an episode.
Much of the TV functionality in Shazam relies on “calls to action” from within the media itself – in the form of the Shazam logo popping up on your TV screen. That’s a little different to how you use Shazam for music, where you explicitly launch the app to discover song titles. However, in both music and TV, Shazam is leading you to discover extra content.
The problem Shazam has faced over the years is that it’s been difficult to generate revenue off the extra content it offers around music. TV offers a potentially much greater revenue platform for Shazam, because they can partner with TV networks and – more significantly – TV advertisers.
Shazam’s evolution into TV programming
Live TV events are a prime market for the new Shazam. It partnered with a number of brands who advertised on TV coverage of the 2012 Super Bowl and the 2012 Grammy Awards Show. Indeed, more than a third of Super Bowl ads were Shazam enabled.
Shazam has shown impressive growth since its launch in 2008. Currently Shazam has over 200 million users now and is adding 1.5 million new users every week. From this increasingly large user base, Shazam is getting 6 million tags a day.
How Shazam Compares
According to statistics Shazam compiled, tagging a TV show with Shazam compares favorably with activity on Twitter and Facebook during the day the show airs. In the chart below, Shazam compares its tags with tweets and Facebook likes.
Shazam believes that tweets and check-ins (from apps like GetGlue and Miso) are not compelling enough for users. Twitter and the check-in apps would argue that the social activity they provide around TV programming is more than enough value-add. Shazam is betting that the media content it provides has even more value. Time will tell – right now there seems plenty of room for both approaches to second screen apps.
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