May 22, 2014 Warner Music Group Collaboration with Shazam Creates Hybrid Record Label
By Zach Rickers
In February of 2014, Warner Music Group and Shazam announced that they would enter into a “strategic collaboration” in which Warner would have access to Shazam’s user data and Shazam would have access to exclusive Warner content.1 Currently, when a user hears a song that they like, whether it is at a restaurant or on the radio, they can open up the Shazam application on their smartphone and hold the phones microphone to the speaker which will then analyze and identify the song title and artist that the user is listening to.2 Once a song is identified, the app logs data such as the time of day the song was “tagged”, the song being identified, and even where the song was tagged (if the user has location services enabled).3 This is the sort of data that Warner plans to use not only for A&R, but also for marketing and promotion purposes.