Shazam mobile app harnesses power of location beacons to make music recommendations
Gimbal claims on its website that its beacon-based platform "bridges the physical and digital worlds" by combining geofencing and analytics, the largest deployment of Bluetooth Smart beacons, and security features and privacy controls.
Specifically, the SDK will help UK-headquartered Shazam to provide its users with contextual recommendations based on when and where a user is at any given time.
A Shazam spokeswoman told Techworld: "Users will now be able to Shazam 'things' and 'places'.
"Shazam is able to recognise the presence of Gimbal proximity beacons when a user presses the Shazam button, returning a result based on the nearest beacon," she said. "For example, with a short range beacon placed behind a movie poster, someone could walk up to the poster, Shazam it, and see a movie trailer. Or with a long range beacon Shazam can enable a DJ so that anyone in the audience can Shazam them and receive custom content."
The integration comes as Shazam - one of the UK's fastest growing "scale up" companies - tries to move away from being a music recognition service towards more of a personalised media recommendation service.
"We are excited to add beacons as a way that we connect our users with the world around them," said Shazam CEO Rich Riley. "Gimbal is an ideal partner to provide an unprecedented, customized mobile experience, and a new and meaningful way to connect brands and consumers."
Shazam, which has seen its mobile app downloaded 500 million times, is tipped to be one of the UK's next big tech IPOs. The company previously told Techworld that it was open to listing on both London and New York markets, adding that it didn't want to rush an IPO.