The data that Shazam can gather must be incredibly useful to record labels, in that many people wanting to know the artist/song is a strong signal that a track is a potential hit. Since Apple already have data about what people are actually listening to (by location), this gives them additional data about what people might want to listen to.
I love Shazam for finding new music and this is really one of my favorites. A couple times a month I see what the top Shazam’s are and usually pick up a new song or two.
Music is at my fingertips from a variety of apps. My biggest problem is discovering new artists or songs.
Forbes, or was it BusinessWeek, actual did an article on that (i.e., selling data to record labels) a year or so ago. If I get a moment I'll try to track it down later.
