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And we're here at Techron's TV for a special interview with Andrew Fisher who is the CEO of Shazam. You guys have just raised a whopping 32 million dollars, correct?
Correct .
Congratulations on that. So I think-- When you're talking about Shazam, I think most people are familiar with the company as the iPhone Apps now available in Android as well. It helps you recognize whatever song you are hearing, any recorded music, it will not work with live music, recorded music, you hold up your phone and they will tell what that is but s you just told me, the company has been around for way longer than I realized it.
Then what?, a decade now?
That's right.
So do you want to talk us through, like the company's history, sort of where the origins and how, when is it taking off?
Yes, I think the thing about Shazam instead of what, been as successful as it has been it's because its a proposition technology that really takes advantage of the device, item mobility factor and And a lot of people listen to music when they are in what we call real home environments outside of their home: night bus, night clubs, restaurants etc And say, when you think about it, you think mobile to engage with music when you hear it and building a discovery service was what we call a made for mobile product and that's one of the reasons why we think we've been very successful But in terms of the history of our company Right, so 10 years ago, I mean most people probably have never heard of you. Were you one of the these services the various carriers offer where you hit a button on your phone and eally what I was going to say was that we were a technology ahead of the market. In terms of where the consumer was at because people weren't buying people toughed it out during the former years whilst it was developing its product, and then the market caught up.
We had to launch additional content people were buying over the air, we have what we call pricingpay the same price to buy over a cell phone network costs you as it costs you to buy a piece music on the internet. And you had unlimited data capacity and you didn't have this factor that, 'Hey i pay a buck for a piece of music, that's going to cost me $5 to download a 3 megabyte file.' And so over the past three years, what we've been seeing is a huge growth curve around our company.
And today every week we In terms of our brand in North America - absolutely.
You said a million new users a week. Is that coming these days primarily from iPhone? or Android?. Which one is driving the growth? Is it a combination?
It across the board. One of the benefits for being an eight year old company in the market which is where we have been is we built for every mobile operating system every platform. So when we're promoted by one of our partners whether its a carrier or whether its a handset manufacturer and you see the advertising and the Shazam app.
All boats rise in our case in which means that lots of people have suddenly become aware that Shazam is on their cell.
But you probably have a pretty good idea of which ones are rising fastest right? Given that it's sort of a universal appeal. So which platform is growing most If you look at...I mean, we're fast approaching 150 million users and we have 40 million users on the iPhone, we have 30 million users on the fastest growing platform over the last 12 months for us as a company.
But, if you look at the weekly statistics around the company, iPhone, Android very prevalent in North America, Western Europe. But in other parts of the world, we're in 200 countries...
Right.
...we still service mid tier devices. Where you don't have the And so when you're talking...I like this, because you are one of the few applicators, I think, that are sort of very popular on both of these these platforms. Is there anything you can tell us as far as users on the iPhone vs. Android, whose is more compelled to actually purchase music?
Because that's actually been one of the...
That's a great question so I'll answer it in two parts. One is transactions and second one is actually behavior. We see consistent use of Javier on smart phones in general. Whether its RAM or whether it is a Nokia smart phone whether it is an iPhone or whether it is an android device. But when it comes to purchasing, it is different.
And there is no two ways about it. iTunes is the dominant platform right now in terms of people's propensity to purchase through that platform. But we do see a lot of work from people like Nokia and OV etc. Single click purchase that carries in their already. And ultimately when we get to just pressing a button to buy a piece of content, then we think that these platforms will level themselves out.
So I wanted to talk a little bit about where you guys are going next, because you have raised a lot of money. It seems like you got this music think worked out pretty well. My understanding is that movie and the television so you kind of kind of highlight what is new television feature, how's it working and how are you guys making money off of it?
Yes, first is where we are right now. Music is working well for us. We're driving over 100 million dollars revenue every year through our platform but we've, we've looked at the technology for a long time has been direct response. What we mean by that is exactly the same app on the phone, no need for an upgrade which you can point it at any audio source and that means television shows and television advertising.
And it's a different market opportunity for us entirely because the television advertising market in North America alone is worth over 60 billion dollars. Recorded music world wide is worth about 10 billion. And we believe that there are two constituencies right now in the broadcast arena. We have the television networks and their paying point is that people at DVR their shows and then fast forwarding through the adverts, and secondarily, the advertisers themselves completely understand the second screen and consumer adoption of smart phones and they want to drive engagement.
They want to continue the experience from showing an ad on television, to continue the dialogue on to the second screen.
So what goes through an experience? What would be an example of how this would work?
It varies by show. Now, we are working with people like NBC, MTV, Discovery channel. This week for example, we are doing the Glee Project where you can Shazam the Glee Project show. By giving somebody the opportunity to be in seven episodes of play--
So I'm watching the show and then someone, an announcer comes on and like, "Shazam is right now" or so it's you could Shazam at any point during the show.
We are not quite at announcing it but we are certainly at the logo. So they are putting on the logo on the screen during the show to prompt people to Shazam the show, you don't have to Shazam at that point in time you can do at any point during the show.It's the same on the advertising front. We've done major campaigns for people like Old Navy 20 million dollar campaign.
They put the Shazam logo in every one of their adverts and then that prompts people to actually Shazam the add.
Here's my question about that. I understand why people might be compelled do that now because it is sort of novel. You have never really been prompted by your television to hold your phone up to the screen. It's different . But a year from now, two years from now, once people do that a few times... because this is like a, the user actually has to act on this, right?
Most commercials you are watching you just sort of sit on your chair and don't move for hours at a time.
This actually requires you to move a little bit. So how you are going to keep people like actually doing it? That's right. What's there in incentive to do this?
Well, people are active in the realm where the TV set is right now. Sixty percent of households in North America have a second device open and people are using that device whilst they are watching tv. And that was a Nielsen statistic. The reality is that they're on social networks, they are on facebook, they are on twitter.
So people are there. The great news about Shazam is that we have 45 million users in North America that already have this capability on their devices.
What's going to get them, they might have a device out, but what's in it if they flick over to the Shazam app and fire it up?
Right . So that's stands to the actual show format itself. So right now, today it's about additional content, exclusive footage, sweepstakes, prize draws, giveaways. But it can be just basic elements like voting, not having to type in a show code and send a text message to vote but just Shazam can cast your vote.
It can be broader than that. So for example, being at Shazam Cooking Show and get the recipe downloaded unto your iPod. So it's driving a connectivity and an engagement. but is has to be really relevant, and you're absolutely right. I mean, the important thing here is what we call the 'payoff' to the consumer has to be really high, it has to be compelling and has to be something far easier than watching the show, going to the internet afterwards and then looking up the content.
Great. Well thank you so much for joining us, once again congratulations on the funny xx. We're excited to see what you guys do with it.
Thanks very much! Thanks for having us!
Yesterday Shazam, the company that lets users identify recorded music simply by holding their phones up toward a speaker, announced that it had raised a whopping $32 million. The company’s goal: to apply the powerful technology it’s developed over the last decade to television shows and commercials. So how will they do that?
I had a chance to sit down with Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher, who discussed in detail how this leap to television will work. And we also touched on quite a few other topics, including the fact that Shazam is now ten years old (it actually powered the song recognition features that were offered by mobile phone carriers before the rise of the iPhone and Android). You can watch the whole interview in the video above.
I also took the opportunity to ask if Fisher has seen any trends emerge on each mobile platform — after all, Shazam has a universal appeal (just about everyone likes music and wants to figure out what they’re listening to). Fisher shared some interesting data points, including the fact that “iTunes is the dominant platform in terms of user propensity to purchase…”. In other words, iPhone users are far more likely to purchase songs than users on Android and other platforms. That’s not a huge surprise, but it further supports the claims that iOS users are more accustomed to buying content on their phones.
Shazam® is the world’s leading media discovery company, enabling people to experience and share content across mobile devices and the Internet. With more than 175 million people using the service in 200 countries, Shazam has created a new way to learn about music, TV and brands and share finds with friends.
For people who don’t yet have the Shazam application on their smartphone, it can be found on iTunes App Store, Android Market, AT&T’s AppCenter, Verizon VCast app store,...
