Shazam (service)

Shazam is an app for Macs, PCs and smartphones,[1] best known for its music identification capabilities that has expanded to integrations with cinema, advertising, TV and retail environments.[2] Shazam Entertainment Limited was founded in 1999 by Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, Avery Wang, and Dhiraj Mukherjee.

Shazam uses a smartphone or computer’s built-in microphone to gather a brief sample of audio being played. It creates an acoustic fingerprint based on the sample and compares it against a central database for a match. If it finds a match, it sends information such as the artist, song title, and album back to the user. Some implementations of Shazam incorporate relevant links to services such as iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or Groove Music. In December 2013, Shazam was one of the top ten apps in the world, according to its CEO.[4] The Shazam app has more than 100 million monthly active users and has been used on more than 500 million mobile devices, as of August 2014.[5] In October 2014, Shazam announced its technology has been used to identify 15 billion songs.

Rich Riley

Rich Riley is an American businessman who is a former Yahoo! executive and currently CEO of music ID service Shazam.

Early life

Rich Riley (born August 17, 1973) grew up in Austin, TX and attended Westlake High School.[citation needed] He received his Bachelor of Science in Economics with concentrations in Finance & Entrepreneurial Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Career

Riley served as EVP, Americas for Yahoo! reporting to the CEO and prior to that as SVP & MD of the EMEA Region after nine years of roles of increasing responsibilities at Yahoo! HQ in Sunnyvale, CA. In October 2011, Riley was named “One to Watch” in 40 under 40 (Fortune Magazine); according to Fortune (magazine), those listed are ‘the hottest young stars in business across the globe.[citation needed] As Yahoo!’s Global Corporate Sponsor for Sustainability, Riley has been an advocate for environmental awareness.[citation needed] He was a particularly active advocate for the Prince’s Rainforest Project, which called for individuals and businesses to sign to do their part to end the eradication of the rainforests.