The increasingly popular mobile music app Shazam is further distancing its new paid-for apps from the free version that made its name…
It’s introducing new features – tour information for tagged artists and starting Last.fm internet radio stations from those artists’ music – that will only be available in the £2.99/$4.99 Encore and (Shazam)Red versions of the iPhone/iPod touch app, introduced in November.
By our reckoning, Shazam is proving one of the most successful mobile apps out there – now its freemium strategy is set to make it rich…
— Shazam drew a respectable 20 million users between 2002 and 2008 but the rise of apps gave it 500,000 new users every week last year…
— So it jumped to 50 million by end of 2009. Now it’s planning on doubling to 100 million this year, before a possible IPO. Don’t bet against that target – Shazam is now getting 750,000 new users every week.
— Of two million songs Shazam users “tag” every day, 13 percent convert in to actual song purchases, CEO Andrew Fischer told Midem last month. That means a rev share from a whopping 260,000 transactions every day that Shazam sends to affiliates like iTunes.
When it released its premium apps, Shazam also issued upgrades to the free version that now limit long-time free users to just five free tags a month. We heard one or two complaints about the tactic, but it’s proving successful for Shazam – both Encore and Red are riding high in iTunes Store’s paid-for music apps chart. The new features, lacking from the free version, may drive even more people to pay for the premium counterparts.
The new tour feature includes geolocation and recommended gigs. The Last.fm radio feature requires Last.fm’s own app, which is fired up by Shazam when needed. Teh Shazam blog info is not as big a premium driver as either of those two.