LIVE FROM MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS: Shazam announced a new version of its audio recognition app, which includes a new interface for tablet users which was described as “a big investment to completely change the experience of Shazam on a tablet”.

The app features an updated home screen showing the TV shows and music users are tagging at the time, as well as a chart of the most popular content. It also has a map feature enabling users to see what is being tagged “starting at the continent level, then drilling down into the country, city, and even to the town level in some cases”.

The company, which now has more than 300 million users worldwide, has spent the last 12 months expanding its TV companion activities. In the US, the app can now be used to tag “any show, any channel”, while in other markets it has concentrated on supporting specific broadcasts – for example the Brit Awards in the UK last week.

“We have two major lines of business now. While music is still a core part of our DNA and really important to us, TV is a brand new area, it’s a new use case. We’re not just music discovery any more, we’re media engagement”, David Jones, EVP of Marketing, told Mobile World Daily.

The company said it has seen “triple-digit growth” in the number of downloads of the iPad version of its app in recent months, particularly for use as a second screen companion while watching television.

“A lot of our tagging still comes from smartphones, because more people have them, and people use what they have to interact. But give it a year or two, and I think the number of tablets on the sofa is going to match the number of smartphones,” he noted.

Shazam is intending to get the updated app to consumers “as quickly as possible”, with the end of March given as a likely date. Because it is “significantly different” to the earlier version, it has to go through the full approvals process for Apple’s App Store.

An updated Android version is likely to come in a similar timeframe.

Other features of the updated app include automatic resubmission of tags which could not be completed due to poor network coverage.