Shazam Entertainment has just launched a new music identifying app for the iPhone titled Shazam Encore, which is now available in the App Store for $4.99, and as a result of this, the free Shazam iPhone app has been crippled to only allow you to identify up to five songs per month.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the move to a paid version simply had to be done thanks to a slumping economy. Shazam Entertainment’s chief executive Andrew Fisher stated that the company just wasn’t making enough off of in-app advertisements and iTunes downloads to sustain its current business model.
Mr. Fisher says mobile advertising was one of the first victims of the recession, and he doesn’t expect ad rates to bounce to levels to sustain free apps for at least two years.
Fisher further backed up that statement by saying the company makes most of its money by selling the app to paying customers on other platforms or through deals with wireless carriers.
But Shazam Entertainment isn’t just limiting its free app to get customers to pay for Encore, they are also trying to sweeten the deal by adding features to the paid version. Shazam Encore contains all of the free version’s features, such as the ability to share tags through a variety of services and purchase music directly through iTunes, but it also features a new interface, many speed improvements, music recommendations, hot and popular music charts, the ability to search for music by artist, album, or track, a drive and tag mode that makes it easier to discover music while the device is docked, and, of course, unlimited song tagging.
What do you folks think? Are the new features, improved speed, and improved interface enough to get you to drop $4.99 on what could be considered a novelty app? Or are you just going to stick with the free version since you get five tags per month anyway?
Okay now can I say once and for all Midomi FTW!
I think that $4:99 is far to expensive for what you get I would possibly pay 99cents for it… Perhaps a little more but $4:99 is far too much for me, I’ll put it on my watchlist on barginbin and wait for it to go on sale
Do they cripple it with an update, remotely, or through their servers?
Way to expensive, definitely a $.99-appropriate title; $4.99 is ridiculous.
$4.99 is that a joke?
5 dollars?? So that’s 3 quid in real money!? Balls to that, far too pricey. Drop it too 59p and we’ll talk…
“had to be done thanks to a slumping economy”
sure jacking up prices is the right thing to do then
*fail*
*deleted*
This makes the jump to MusicID even easier now.
I had Shazam for Blackberry and it cost $4.99 for the unlimited version. I didn’t want to pay it then, and I don’t want to pay it now. I love Shazam don’t get me wrong, but that’s definitely a $.99 app. It might be a little more justified if the app could sync your tags with your online account.
Ironically, they just recently made the nokia / symbian s60 version of the app free at the ovi store (nokia’s app store equivalent)
$4.99 what a rip off … that is way too expensive.
“Free apps will always be free.” Yeah, they will just be free and do nothing.
Wow, lots of people here underestimate the value of such an app. I’ve used this sort of service for several months now to keep track of the songs I want to purchase. If I hear it on the radio, I’ll tag it and buy it later. Except, I use Midomi–and haven’t looked back at Shazam once.
I will buy their competitor just because they are being jerks with this whole thing.
Yes, once i discovered midomi it was over. Midomi has play back and the new shazam dosen’t. Ill stick to my midomi.
Wow. Thats some sad news. Thats one o the most frequent apps i use. That sucks. I wouldnt pay two dollars for this app. Maybe a buck. Maybe. Im a little pissed at Shazam. I understand economics are a factor. But $5? Wow.
I originally wanted Midomi, but since that was a paid app and Shazam was free, that was a deal breaker. Now, however, Shazam made the decision much easier.
Midomi, here I come
Yeah, .99 is about right. Guess I’ll be going to Midomi. I might go as high as $1.99 if I can pee in Mr. Fisher’s face as part of the deal. But that’s about it.
I think that current users that do NOT update their free Shazam ID can use it without the 5 tag limit.
I could be wrong but I tagged about 8 or 10 songs with it today without problems.
Now Shazam has been deleted and Midomi is the main thing now.
They could a least have given us a little more than 5 tags, 10-15 would have been ok for me at least.
I will not use shazam ID again, or buy the new version.
I will use ANY other such application I can find rather that Shazam, and Midomi although expensive will be my choice, simply because of this move by shazam, I will not be bullied into buying the new app.
If I wer Midomi I would lower my price temporarily to catch all those angry Shazam users in the next weeks
I have just seen an update for Shazam and it states:
PLEASE NOTE
As an existing user when you update to Shazam 1.8 you will keep unlimited tagging.
So, this must mean the free/lite version of limited tagging is only applicable to new users?
What do you guys think?
Presumably if you ignore the free version update Shazam stays as it is with unlimited tags.
Well, the last 4 times I tried to use Shazam it failed to find the song. All were songs in tv shows or commercials, so it wasn’t really obscure stuff. $5 would be reasonable if it actually worked well.
An update for shazam is out. it says nothing about a limit, but DO NOT UPDATE.
It is stated in the first line of the second paragraph, that “With this version of Shazam, you get 5 Tags per month and the options to buy and share your music discoveries”.
I’m looking at the Update screen for Shazam on my iPhone right now. The last line of the description reads:
PLEASE NOTE:
As an existing user when you update to Shazam 1.8. you will keep unlimited tagging.
Yea, I can see that, they added that this morning of late last night.
They must have seen the response on the internet regarding those changes.
Why isn’t Shazam Encore listed on Bargain Bin so I can monitor the price in case they have a promotional sale at a lower price that is reasonable rather than the unreasonable $4.99? If the encore version really does work faster (and maybe even opens faster so you can catch thje song before it stops playing) I would be willing to spend up to $1.99.