Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch reported that the audio fingerprinting wizards at Shazam have raised a ginormous round of $32 million. Part of the new pitch is that Shazam is expanding from music track identification and into solutions for television.
They have started a program called Shazam for TV and are partnered up with the likes of MTV, NBCUniversal and diverse advertisers to integrate their content with Shazam. TV shows are promoting engagement by prompting users to 'Shazam' a segment by starting the app and sampling the audio of the program. Advertisers are doing the same. Once the Shazam app recognizes the sample it can provide a number of things back to the user: select content, background information, push deals and product info, to name a few. (see video after the jump)
This began with Gravity and Gracenote creating the Grey's Anatomy app for iPad. Using audio fingerprinting to sample a section of the show and provide content for viewer engagement.
