text: "Rock God," (below) meanwhile, features a teen boy learning to play the guitar and asking Siri "How do I play 'London Calling'? 'Whole Lotta Love'?" The boy then uses Siri to relay a message to friends that his band will be playing in the garage tonight. For the kicker, he asks Siri to refer to him as "Rock God." Of course, Siri complies.
  Upon Apple's introduction of the iPhone 4S in early October, Siri emerged as the most obvious improvement upon the previous model and, not surprisingly, Apple has focused on Siri in its 4S advertising. Since Siri is still so new, the latest ads are educational in nature, attempting to describe what Siri does to fence-sitters who may be unsure of the 4S's virtues over competing Android models. In a bid to sow confusion, Samsung ran a Super Bowl ad for its Galaxy Note that harped upon a feature that the 4S doesn't have — a stylus. However, as many Twitter commenters pointed out, that may be for a good reason: Many doubt such a device is necessary.
  Consumers who are lukewarm on Apple — as opposed to the fanboys depicted in Samsung's ad — are the prime target for the new advertising. As Apple's jaw-dropping Q1 earnings demonstrated, the company has no problem selling the iPhone 4S, but Apple doubtlessly wants to continue converting consumers trading up to smartphones.
  
  For many, Shazam is just a magic blue button that tells you what song is playing at the bar or on the radio. Considering how daunting a task being able to identify the world's music is, it does this very well. But, the company wants to be more than this.
  At a event in TriBeCa Monday, the company announced a new feature where users of the app can follow their favorite artists and see what they're Shazaming. Alicia Keys, One Direction and Maroon 5 are part of a group of 30 artists participating at the launch, with more musicians, and possibly non-musicians to follow.
  It's all part of a big push to drive up engagement within the app: Shazam currently is a bit of a one-stop shop where you come in, identify your song and leave. This feature works great, but the company needs users to stay inside the app for a longer time to increase revenue from advertising and referrals.
  The company is calling this a transition from a pure "discovery" experience to a "shared discovery" experience.
  Artists will be able to choose what music they share with their followers and users will be able to "like" the tracks they share. Shazam will also now show how many times a track has been Shazamed, in addition to the charts it already has.
  Last year, Shazam launched a feature to help users discover new music, based on the most Shazamed songs in their local area and around the world, augmenting its music identification service.
  Shazam drives revenue through referrals and ads on the app. Referrals occur when a user taps on a song within Shazam — both identified and discovered — and is given a link to listen in Apple Music, rdio or Spotify, build a radio station on Pandora and find out when an artist is performing in their city.
  In an interview with Mashable, Shazam's Chief Product Officer Daniel Danker said that Shazam referrals were responsible for 8% of all digital music sales in the world.
  You might be led to believe that with Shazam launching a new social element to its platform, it would be a competitor to Apple Music, but Danker said it's nothing of the sort. Shazam worked closely with Apple and it's one of the first apps to launch with Apple Music integrations.
  "It's got to be a 'better together' strategy, because, put yourself in the shoes of the user: they don't want strong lines between these services, they want smooth movement, and that's what delivers the best consumer experience," Danker said. So think of Shazam not as a competitor, but a companion to Apple Music or your streaming service of choice.
  For artists, this product gives a new way to interact with fans. In an interview with Mashable Singer Adam Lambert said "I'm on social media blasting out [to fan's] songs all the time, so I think this will be a more practical hands-on thing."
  Lambert also notes Shazam is an interesting means of discovery for artists because listeners come to the music without any preconceived notions. It "lets the music be front and center."
  30 musicians will be "verified" on Shazam with the launch, and Danker says that 100 more are waiting to be verified. Independent musicians will also be able to become verified, so it's not just a feature for the upper-echelons of artists.
  "I want every single artist on Shazam to be verified. I want every artist to be reaching their fans in this way," Danker said. He even thinks that this feature could be expanded to include non musicians as well: "You could easily see a world where someone like Ryan Seacrest is verified."
  This product comes at quite an interesting time for the music industry. Danker said that "we've been seeing quiet in the music industry for a while, and now I think it's revitalized. I love that because it's changing the way people discover music, it's changing the way that people consume music and it's changing the way that people talk about music. It's going to be a really interesting year for music."
  It's tricky to predict how well the social aspect of Shazam will be received. The only real precedent for social networking being rolled into a music app would be iTunes Ping, which Apple pulled the plug on in 2012.
  The industry seems to be headed in that direction, though, with Apple Music's Connect platform and Tidal's exclusive content from its artist-investors.