“The best things in life are free,” goes the song — whose version though? Katie Price & Peter Andre? Chico Hamilton? Bing Crosby? Shazam, the popular track identification service, would be able to tell you in a flash. Recently Nokia teamed up with Shazam to offer Shazam for free through its Ovi Store, proving the above lyric to be true. Shazam (for S60 phones) can be downloaded for free from the Ovi Store now, and will be available gratis until the 30th of November.
Shazam allows users to identify tracks by ‘tagging’. You hold your phone up to the radio or TV, or any speaker and the system listens to the song and cleverly figures out what it is. So if you’re ever stuck in a lift and simply have to find out who recorded that version of Greensleeves, you can Shazam it.
In the Nokia version, successfully tagged tracks will present you with the name of the artist and a direct link to the Nokia Music Store. This means if you’ve got a 5800 XpressMusic and you’re on Orange’s Comes With Music tariff you can Shazam a track and download it for free. Additionally, Shazamers will be able to search for similar and related artists, similar to Last.fm, allowing users to experience artists which they’ve perhaps not heard before.
The promotion is running on a strictly first come, first served basis. The exact number of free passes has not yet been released by either Shazam or Nokia, so if you like the sound of this you’ll want to put your name down sharpish. After the 30th of November the Shazam for S60 app will go on sale for a one-off fee of £4. Those who successfully sign up for Shazam on a Nokia S60 phone before then can choose to either pay to keep using Shazam, or continue Shazaming for free on a limited basis of 5 tags per month.
Shazam is available across all of the major smartphone platforms, including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and now Symbian S60.
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