Motorola has signed up to preload Shazam‘s music recognition service onto some of its handsets to be sold in Latin America, under the brand MotoID.
The service will “benefit users by providing relevant songs information and by giving the option to purchase and download relevant content such as the song’s ringtone, screensaver or wallpaper”, and probably the MP3 download once the technology becomes more widespread in LatAm, although cost-conscious consumers will probably get the details of the songs and buy them elsewhere. The recognition service is free (apart from telco data charges) and Shazam has 3.2 million songs in the database—I’m hoping a significant portion of them are Latin.
I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty certain this is the first time Shazam has licensed its technology to a handset manufacturer rather than a carrier. Motorola is the largest manufacturer in Latin America, and probably sees the service as a way to appeal both to carriers (to sell content) and to music-loving consumers.