Shazam try to shift from identification to playing

You know what you should do when you do one thing really, really well?

No, Shazam, it's not try to expand into doing things other people already do, but better:

That’s a trend that’s been underway for a while, but was emphasised yesterday with a relaunch of Shazam’s music features. They include even more focus on the app’s news feed, with music news and song recommendations based on each user’s past tagging habits, as well as exclusive live sessions and interviews.

The app’s dedicated music player also has more priority in the redesign, complete with the ability for users to sign in to Spotify to listen to tracks in full within Shazam’s iOS app, with Android to follow. This matches the existing integration with Rdio, incidentally.

What is the point of that? "Hmm, I wonder what this song I'm listening to is. Oh, it's Stiggy Bates and Never Touch Me There. Oh, and I could play it now, so I could actually listen to this song I'm already listening to, but pay for data on top of it. What a brilliant idea."

Shazam! See you in court

Shazam - that handy little thing which lets your phone tell you what you're listening to - is getting sued, along with several companies which use their technology:

Shazam is named along with Samsung, Apple, Amazon.com, Napster, Motorola, Gracenote, Verizon Wireless, LG Electronics, AT&T Mobility, and Pantech Wireless in a suit filed Tuesday over U.S. Patent No. 6,941,275, which was issued to Remi Swierczek/Tune Hunter in September 2005. The suit accuses Shazam's music discovery and identification service of violating the patent and the other companies of benefiting directly from Shazam's alleged infringement.

That patent:

Tune Hunter's patent covers "a music identification/purchasing system, specifically to a method for marking the time and the name of the radio station in portable device such as a key holder, watch, cellular phone, beeper or the like which will allow the user to learn via internet or regular telephone the name of the song, artist and/or music company by matching the stored data with broadcast archive."

How did they get a patent for that when, erm, Shazam has been running since about 2002?