Shazamination; Shazam’s Plans for World Domination (via Your Television)

You know that little blue “s” symbol that advertisers have started dropping on the corners of their advertisements? Expect to start seeing more of them, starting now.

While I am sure most of you have heard of Shazam, the social music-tagging software, the program is now branching out into a whole new universe; television.

I remember the first time I saw a Shazam button on an ad: Progressive. Being the front-of-the-curve as usual, the brand promoted their adver-game Rocket Cat Adventures (meow) by encouraging us to scan the symbol to play along. While promotig some of their own agenda, of course.

Oh- and don’t forget the Olympics! The perfect testing ground of their expansion, Shazam promoted themselves as a secondary source of content.

“Now with Shazam, you can access ALLL of the content!”

“How revolutionary! A new way to distract myself WHILE I am being distracted by TV!” while I won’t deny that we are already distracted to the brink by multiple sources, often at once, the role of this “distraction” is  evolving.

While today we may distract ourselves with Plants vs. Zombies while watching Dr.Phil (“that’s good quality television!” in the words of Justin Timberlake), tomorrow we will not  only be watching tv, but interacting with it.

“Now how is that ever going to happen?” you may ask

One word: Shazam. Not only can you watch a progressive commercial, but now you can play the cat in the commercial, allowing the brand to position itself while providing you with an active means of watching. Now that’s smart.

Now, how about an app that cleans my house while I watch?