CEO Andrew Fisher on the company's new SARA program.
Shazam is keen to capitalise on its 50-million-strong userbase by diversifying beyond music, according to CEO Andrew Fisher.
"Our mission is to make Shazam ubiquitous," he says.
"It's primarily about discovery, but there are many other ways of using Shazam beyond discovering a song."
The company announced its new SARA program this week, which lets users 'tag' TV shows and adverts in order to access branded mobile sites and promotions.
"This is taking us into the biggest emerging category, which is advertising, and then marrying that with traditional media and broadcasters," says Fisher.
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While he stresses that Shazam will consider to aggressively develop the music aspects of its service, it seems the key to the company's growth will be its diversification.
"There is a long way to go with developing the music service,” says Fisher. “But it is important that we move beyond music. We want to stay in the mainstream, not be a niche technology provider."
Of course, getting into advertising as well as music could make the VC-backed company an increasingly attractive acquisition target in the months to come, with Apple and Google embarking on an M&A-fuelled battle for smartphone dominance...
For the full Andrew Fisher interview, click here.
