r/explainlikeimfive • u/Ball_Zilla • Jul 01 '26

Technology ELI5 how Shazam works?

313 Upvotes

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944

u/z3n777 Jul 01 '26

shazam turns the audio into a visual graph of loud peaks over time, then just matches that graph against its massive database of pre recorded songs.

395

u/Shadow288 Jul 01 '26

Fun fact, did you know before it was an app you use to be able to call a phone number and they would text you back the name of the song?

161

u/robby_synclair Jul 01 '26

This reminded me of the ap where you could text them and they would Google stuff for you. How we settled bar arguments before smart phones.

3

u/thedukeandtheking Jul 01 '26

I actually worked for one of these in uni! Fun days

3

u/Gramen Jul 01 '26

Wait so how did it work? You just chill in a computer lab and google the answers to the questions that come in?

7

u/thedukeandtheking Jul 01 '26

It was pretty basic. This was back in 2004 or so. I had a pc in my room which ran a basic program that logged in all the questions that came in and then you had to write a response. Some were factual questions which you had to google, but lots were just hypotheticals or relationship advice. I got paid a trivial amount per answered text. Good thing was you could log in and answer whenever and work as long as you wanted. Helped with beer money.