10 ms·

I agree with the lauding of Shazam, but I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I've always viewed Shazam as a novelty and have i

I agree with the lauding of Shazam, but I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I've always viewed Shazam as a novelty and have installed and uninstalled it a few random times, but as Jobs would say it seems like a feature not a product.

alfredmuffin 8y ago
I can't speak for who you're replying to, but I find myself using it at restaurants, bars, and public locations where music is playing, as well as friends' cars, and other social gatherings. I know these sort of situations are rare for the average HN user.
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  > I know these sort of situations are rare for the average HN user. A generalization if I ever saw one.
  - Mononokay 8y ago
    Have you ever heard about the concept of the "joke?" Novelty thing, I tell you. Admittedly, it might be a bit too recent of a concept for the average person to be aware of, especially with how radical it is. Here's a recent book of them, to help you get "in" on the "hip slang" of tomorrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philogelos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philogelos
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
      Have you heard of Poe’s law?
      - alfredmuffin 8y ago
        People like you take the fun out of this community
        DonHopkins 8y ago
        An Abderite sees a eunuch talking with a woman and asks him if she's his wife. The guy responds that a eunuch is unable to have a wife. "Ah, so she's your daughter?"
  - bsder 8y ago
    Foghorn Leghorn has some comments for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE And the original Senator Claghorn that Foghorn Leghorn was channeling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBE92naflJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBE92naflJ0
- coldtea 8y ago
  They're also rare for anyone over 30 to care about (if not the situations themselves, what some random soundtrack to them is). Give it time...
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    Other people might be different from you.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      A correct statement based on three wrong assumptions. 1) That I've lost interest in music myself (I didn't). 2) That whether some other people might not lose music was disputed. Perhaps you imagined me as some strange creature in a cave that has never heard or known of people that maintain their interest in music to their late age. 3) That the fact that some other people don't lose interest in music is relevant. I was making a general statement ("it's also rare"). Most people do lose interest in music compared to their younger years. That's not some fringe claim, it's borne out by buying patterns and studies. People tend to stick to the music of their youth time and again. Even the new artists they discover tend to be of the same genres and styles in vogue when they were younger.
      - iainmerrick 8y ago
        Even if so, why would that mean older people have no use for Shazam? Have you never heard an old song you half-recognized and thought “huh, what band is that again?”
        coldtea 8y ago
        >why would that mean older people have no use for Shazam? It doesn't mean "older people have no use for Shazam". It means "as it has been observed statistically, _most_ older people don't seem to have a use for Shazam and any random older person is more likely to fall into that category than the rest of the older people". Carl Craig is old too. >Have you never heard an old song you half-recognized and thought “huh, what band is that again?” Yes, but this is not such a large part of the older demographic's lifestyle for the app to matter much to them. Old people also want to send their dickpicks too, but they don't flock to Snapchat.
- meowface 8y ago
  I don't go out much, but when I do, most music I've experienced seems to be tolerable at best and ear-assault at worst. I can only think of maybe 2 or 3 times in the past decade where I've heard music in a public location and was interested enough to want to know what song it was.
  - alfredmuffin 8y ago
    > I don't go out much Behold, the average HN user I was referring to
    - meowface 8y ago
      It was an unrelated point, though. I'm not sure going out more would result in me finding more music I enjoy, unless I heavily vary where I go.
theDoug 8y ago
This "feature not a product" belief only makes sense if you pretend that the product doesn't provide the answer sought by its primary user and as byproduct produces a truly real-time stream/map of what music-enjoying people are interested in finding out more about. This data would be incredibly valuable to companies trying to market and sell music. Like labels, and now, Apple. Not to mention keeping that data now out of the hands of others.
- endorphone 8y ago
  I mean a feature in a sense that it seems (although I assume I wrong and thus am asking) like something that one uses extremely rarely and offers limited utility. I have used Shazam a few times, and each time quickly install, use it, and remove it. I would have used it more if I could just ask Siri or Ok Google what a song was. There is another reply to me that snarkily opines that the average HNer doesn't engage in social events, which is a bit humorous really because a more correct statement is that most people are socializing at social events, not doing inference on background music. I can say that I have never, ever seen another person pull out shazam in public.
  - code_duck 8y ago
    You can ask Siri what the song is. One UI flaw is that music app is open or playing on your phone, she will name the active track. Otherwise, she will say ‘Listening...’ and then identify the song and artist, I think with iTunes links (or course!).
- coldtea 8y ago
  >This "feature not a product" belief only makes sense if you pretend that the product doesn't provide the answer sought by its primary user It also makes sense if the scope of the product is not enough for it to make anyone pay for it (except as part of a larger product).
  - pathseeker 8y ago
    People don't pay for social networks either.
mcphage 8y ago
> I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I'm not the original commenter, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest—they use it to find out what a song is that they hear & like?
dylan604 8y ago
As a DJ constantly looking for tracks to add to the collection. I listen to streaming music pretty constantly. For individual tracks with all of the metadata, the artist/track name info is provided. For listening to other DJ mixes, you just get the DJ name and mix name. Shazam tells me the specific track. I also use My Shazams as a potential mix list. If I have an item in My Shazams, it caught my attention for some reason. Just putting those tracks together into a set has worked out pretty well. It gets tricky if I'm using my phone as the streaming source. At that point, I usually just take a screen grab. If it's an individual track, I have artist/track name, and if it's a mix, I can use the playhead position to narrow down which track it was later.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >As a DJ constantly looking for tracks to add to the collection. I listen to streaming music pretty constantly. For individual tracks with all of the metadata, the artist/track name info is provided. For listening to other DJ mixes, you just get the DJ name and mix name. Shazam tells me the specific track. So a pretty narrow demographic for the feature though...
  - pathseeker 8y ago
    Diabetes apps have a narrow demographic too. What's your point?
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Diabetes apps operate on one of the most lucrative markets (health), and are essential and even life-saving for their demographic. Not a mere nicety for some creative professions... Also, diabetes narrow? 30 million have it in the US, I'd say those are way more than DJs that need to recognize tunes, and have much more motive to use an app that helps them keep track of something that can have huge impact on their health...
  - parthdesai 8y ago
    I'm not a DJ, but i listen to electronic music mainly and it usually is on soundcloud in the form of sets. If 1001tracklist doesn't come through, Shazam is my go to app.
mclehman 8y ago
I don't use Shazam since I have a Pixel 2 that does the same thing in the background, but I use track recognition every day to automatically populate a Spotify playlist with all the music it recognizes throughout the day. It's really nice to have a playlist to scroll back through when I find myself asking "what was that cool song I heard yesterday?”
acjohnson55 8y ago
I probably use it once every couple weeks. So not quite daily, but certainly regularly. If you're a musically inclined person, Shazam is a superpower.

alfredmuffin 8y ago

I can't speak for who you're replying to, but I find myself using it at restaurants, bars, and public locations where music is playing, as well as friends' cars, and other social gatherings. I know these sort of situations are rare for the average HN user.

Cyph0n 8y ago
> I know these sort of situations are rare for the average HN user. A generalization if I ever saw one.
- Mononokay 8y ago
  Have you ever heard about the concept of the "joke?" Novelty thing, I tell you. Admittedly, it might be a bit too recent of a concept for the average person to be aware of, especially with how radical it is. Here's a recent book of them, to help you get "in" on the "hip slang" of tomorrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philogelos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philogelos
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    Have you heard of Poe’s law?
    - alfredmuffin 8y ago
      People like you take the fun out of this community
      - DonHopkins 8y ago
        An Abderite sees a eunuch talking with a woman and asks him if she's his wife. The guy responds that a eunuch is unable to have a wife. "Ah, so she's your daughter?"
- bsder 8y ago
  Foghorn Leghorn has some comments for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE And the original Senator Claghorn that Foghorn Leghorn was channeling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBE92naflJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBE92naflJ0
coldtea 8y ago
They're also rare for anyone over 30 to care about (if not the situations themselves, what some random soundtrack to them is). Give it time...
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  Other people might be different from you.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    A correct statement based on three wrong assumptions. 1) That I've lost interest in music myself (I didn't). 2) That whether some other people might not lose music was disputed. Perhaps you imagined me as some strange creature in a cave that has never heard or known of people that maintain their interest in music to their late age. 3) That the fact that some other people don't lose interest in music is relevant. I was making a general statement ("it's also rare"). Most people do lose interest in music compared to their younger years. That's not some fringe claim, it's borne out by buying patterns and studies. People tend to stick to the music of their youth time and again. Even the new artists they discover tend to be of the same genres and styles in vogue when they were younger.
    - iainmerrick 8y ago
      Even if so, why would that mean older people have no use for Shazam? Have you never heard an old song you half-recognized and thought “huh, what band is that again?”
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >why would that mean older people have no use for Shazam? It doesn't mean "older people have no use for Shazam". It means "as it has been observed statistically, _most_ older people don't seem to have a use for Shazam and any random older person is more likely to fall into that category than the rest of the older people". Carl Craig is old too. >Have you never heard an old song you half-recognized and thought “huh, what band is that again?” Yes, but this is not such a large part of the older demographic's lifestyle for the app to matter much to them. Old people also want to send their dickpicks too, but they don't flock to Snapchat.
meowface 8y ago
I don't go out much, but when I do, most music I've experienced seems to be tolerable at best and ear-assault at worst. I can only think of maybe 2 or 3 times in the past decade where I've heard music in a public location and was interested enough to want to know what song it was.
- alfredmuffin 8y ago
  > I don't go out much Behold, the average HN user I was referring to
  - meowface 8y ago
    It was an unrelated point, though. I'm not sure going out more would result in me finding more music I enjoy, unless I heavily vary where I go.

theDoug 8y ago

This "feature not a product" belief only makes sense if you pretend that the product doesn't provide the answer sought by its primary user and as byproduct produces a truly real-time stream/map of what music-enjoying people are interested in finding out more about. This data would be incredibly valuable to companies trying to market and sell music. Like labels, and now, Apple. Not to mention keeping that data now out of the hands of others.

endorphone 8y ago
I mean a feature in a sense that it seems (although I assume I wrong and thus am asking) like something that one uses extremely rarely and offers limited utility. I have used Shazam a few times, and each time quickly install, use it, and remove it. I would have used it more if I could just ask Siri or Ok Google what a song was. There is another reply to me that snarkily opines that the average HNer doesn't engage in social events, which is a bit humorous really because a more correct statement is that most people are socializing at social events, not doing inference on background music. I can say that I have never, ever seen another person pull out shazam in public.
- code_duck 8y ago
  You can ask Siri what the song is. One UI flaw is that music app is open or playing on your phone, she will name the active track. Otherwise, she will say ‘Listening...’ and then identify the song and artist, I think with iTunes links (or course!).
coldtea 8y ago
>This "feature not a product" belief only makes sense if you pretend that the product doesn't provide the answer sought by its primary user It also makes sense if the scope of the product is not enough for it to make anyone pay for it (except as part of a larger product).
- pathseeker 8y ago
  People don't pay for social networks either.

mcphage 8y ago

> I am interested in your statement "I use it almost daily" -- what for? I'm not the original commenter, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest—they use it to find out what a song is that they hear & like?

dylan604 8y ago

As a DJ constantly looking for tracks to add to the collection. I listen to streaming music pretty constantly. For individual tracks with all of the metadata, the artist/track name info is provided. For listening to other DJ mixes, you just get the DJ name and mix name. Shazam tells me the specific track. I also use My Shazams as a potential mix list. If I have an item in My Shazams, it caught my attention for some reason. Just putting those tracks together into a set has worked out pretty well. It gets tricky if I'm using my phone as the streaming source. At that point, I usually just take a screen grab. If it's an individual track, I have artist/track name, and if it's a mix, I can use the playhead position to narrow down which track it was later.

coldtea 8y ago
>As a DJ constantly looking for tracks to add to the collection. I listen to streaming music pretty constantly. For individual tracks with all of the metadata, the artist/track name info is provided. For listening to other DJ mixes, you just get the DJ name and mix name. Shazam tells me the specific track. So a pretty narrow demographic for the feature though...
- pathseeker 8y ago
  Diabetes apps have a narrow demographic too. What's your point?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Diabetes apps operate on one of the most lucrative markets (health), and are essential and even life-saving for their demographic. Not a mere nicety for some creative professions... Also, diabetes narrow? 30 million have it in the US, I'd say those are way more than DJs that need to recognize tunes, and have much more motive to use an app that helps them keep track of something that can have huge impact on their health...
- parthdesai 8y ago
  I'm not a DJ, but i listen to electronic music mainly and it usually is on soundcloud in the form of sets. If 1001tracklist doesn't come through, Shazam is my go to app.

mclehman 8y ago

I don't use Shazam since I have a Pixel 2 that does the same thing in the background, but I use track recognition every day to automatically populate a Spotify playlist with all the music it recognizes throughout the day. It's really nice to have a playlist to scroll back through when I find myself asking "what was that cool song I heard yesterday?”

acjohnson55 8y ago

I probably use it once every couple weeks. So not quite daily, but certainly regularly. If you're a musically inclined person, Shazam is a superpower.