This September, Shazam announced users had deployed their app’s name-that-tune/media discovery function more than 10 billion times to peg down different songs, television shows and advertisements. Each month, ten million more people jump on the platform to listen and engage with all kinds of media; and according to Rich Riley, the best is yet to come. After 14 years at Yahoo, the 40-year-old head honcho at Shazam has embarked on a positive journey and, between meetings with his clients, answered Red Herring’s questions.

Red Herring: What is the situation at the company?

Rich Riley: We are in a phase of accelerated growth. It took us ten years to get to the first billion transactions. Then 10 months for the second billion. [And two months to go from the ninth to the tenth billion.] And we can anticipate that it will go faster in the near future.

RH: How are you expanding the company’s mission?

RR: Shazam’s core value and roots remain in mobile. Consumers decide to engage in music and they expect Shazam to provide a magical experience. Recently we have added dimensions that make it richer by providing historical perspectives, graphs and other elements which make it unique, and a leadership position for our company.

RR: Where we are extending the franchise? TV has become the next frontier and we are making TV “Shazamable.” [As U.S. programming already integrates Shazam,] over time, we anticipate that every show, every program [outside the U.S.] will integrate Shazam and we are currently holding talks with major networks to convert this new step into a reality. We are also working with advertisers to transform their 30 second experience into a deeper engagement. We are continuously adding to our capabilities by so doing.

RH: What drives this explosive growth?

RR: At its core, Shazam is a technology company. Our engineers create new releases of our apps and update them every month, at a faster rate than ever. This allows us to reach customers better with the latest version.

Also we have [a] new set of opportunities: we are in constant conversations to facilitate the mobile strategy of our partners, in programming or in advertising. [We are now working with] a larger variety of applications or verticals, making their ads clickable since we can produce anything on a HTML canvas [and that makes it easier].

 And we are spending our time evangelizing our [capabilities, so] the next frontier is expanding all the time.

RH: What is your mandate as a CEO?

RR: Since I joined, I have to [achieve] the optimal balance and make sure we have the right people [to lead] the 200 Shazam employees in the right direction. My second task is to spend time with all our stakeholders, media companies, networks, advertisers, with whom we have partnerships. Those are high level partnerships. We work closely with Apple, Amazon, Audio, Spotify among others. For example, Shazam sells [$300M each year, which translates into 500,000 songs per day on all platforms,] so you can imagine what it means in terms of relationship for all parties involved. But it goes beyond, since we deal with record labels, events, etc.

RH: Any gap between your perception prior to joining and what you eventually learned during the first 100 days?

RR: Sometimes CEOs are disappointed but in this case I did perform my due diligence beforehand and I spent a lot of time with Andrew Fisher who was CEO for over eight years and [is] now Chairman. I spoke to longtime board members like Nenad Marovac and investor Kevin Murphy from Kleiner Perkins to get their perspective. I realized three positive things: that I could develop an invaluable partnership with Andy; that customers loved Shazam’s experience much more even than what I thought; and that the opportunity is larger than we planned.

RH: If everything is rosy, why change the CEO?

RR: The company may have needed someone to grow rapidly from the current stage and someone who had operated in a more complex environment on a larger scale. Also the U.S. is a real focus on our current development.

For me, this represents a fantastic opportunity after 14 years at Yahoo! to work with 200 people, well beyond the five-people startups in a garage, yet to move at a fast pace. It is quite rare to have such a market impact with a strong team in different functions in a company of Shazam’s size.

RH: So what is the roadmap?

RR: We have one of the top ten apps in the world. Shazam is the fundamental way to connect media and content [with people via their smart devices. And it has the potential to be integrated with an innumerable set of verticals such as the retail environment and radio.] It is increasingly relevant to billions of people and we [plan] to execute towards their sharing a magical experience. And the IPO is a fundamental milestone to focus on.

RH: Compared to Google and Facebook, is Shazam too green for an IPO at this stage? Is the business model predictable enough?

RR: Public market investors aspire to growth and momentum. They want to see consumer engagement and progress (more people and more use of Shazam). They want to see technology and category leadership. Since I came on board, we have met with well known bankers and experts and I think the key word is predictability and not really an absolute revenue level. At least that’s what I have understood from these briefings.

Consequently, our job is to put the team, the controls, the accounting and more importantly to continue getting more customers. We put the company in an IPO readiness state first and decide later when it is right. By the way, IPOs are highly dependent upon the overall environment which we do not control so the best we can do is to solidify the prerequisites. Maybe a year or two from now, we will find ourselves in a position to decide on an IPO. Our investors have been patient and backed us up and it has taken a long time.

We are well-financed after Carlos Slim and other firms invested [more than $80 million] in Shazam at a far higher valuation than Series A players such as DN Capital and Nenad Marovac. We have a solid balance sheet so we should focus on our knitting, to develop Shazam around the world.

With Locket, co-founder and CEO Yunha Kim had brands in mind she thought users might like to interact with, but customers quickly took ad selection upon themselves. “We were getting thousands of emails from users that are saying, hey, I want to see ads from this company or that company,” she says. Soon, those emails prompted a platform allowing customers to request and rank which brands advertised on their phones.

According to the company’s press release, submissions flooded in following the “My Ads” platform’s appearance on lock screens. Within 20 minutes, users had sent in 1,000 entries. The campaign saw a click-through rate of 36.2 percent, meaning almost 4 of 10 people engaged with Locket instead of swiping messaging to the side.

The platform’s a triple-win for Locket, consumers and advertisers. Locket gets users increasingly engaged in their product; customers get say in what they’re pitched; and advertisers get crucial data on ready-made markets. “Advertisers are spending a lot of time and money and resources on trying to find out who their demographics are,” Kim says. Locket can measure reach. “I think that’s more efficient than trying to beat around the bush and guessing what ads users would like to see.”

Following the success of the campaign, the company’s launching a financial outreach program called Locket Cares. Currently, Locket’s partnering with Los Angeles non-prof Free Arts for Abused Children, which brings art programming to more than 500,000 underprivileged kids. “Locket is backing the organization by driving donations and featuring children’s beautiful and inspiring artwork on Locket users’ lock screens,” the release states. Kim says Locket Cares eliminates confusion around where to donate and when and makes charitable giving one-swipe simple. “We were thinking, how cool would it be for users to be like, I’m a Locket Caregiver, or Locket Giver,” Kim says. “Then all you have to do is click on that button, and that allows you to give back to the community every single time you unlock your phone.”

Kim foresees Locket letting users choose where their donations go, but right now they’ve paired with Free Arts for a trial run.

As for Locket’s future, they’re connecting with investors and looking to raise additional capital. “We are actually in the fundraising process for the next, a bigger round,” Kim says. “We have our previous investors that would like to join but we are also looking for the best partners that already have experience in what we’re doing, and [who would] be able to add new perspective and add value to our business.”

More money means expansion from the Android platform. “With the fundraising, as soon as we close that, we will be hiring aggressively,” Kim says. Additional staff will help develop an iPhone and tablet app for Locket.

“It has always been our mission to make the world more open and connected. Although more than a billion people around the world already use Facebook every month, we are always looking for ways to help connect the rest of the world as well,” Facebook’s Director of Product Management Tom Stocky  explained in a Facebook status update announcing the deal. “Voice technology has become an increasingly important way for people to navigate mobile devices and the web, and this technology will help us evolve our products to match that evolution. We believe this acquisition is an investment in our long-term product roadmap as we continue towards our company’s mission.”

Stocky pointed to the acqui-hire intent of the acquisition, stating “With this deal we will welcome some of the industry’s most talented people to our engineering teams in Menlo Park, California.” Facebook has indicated it will continue to support the Jibbigo app for the time being.

Considering Facebook’s international social audience, it is easy to understand why it would want to boost its speech translation abilities with an in-house approach. The social network had relied on translation services through Microsoft’s Bing. Owning its own translator services gives it better leverage in making translation a core focus of its platform as it pursues its mission to make the world more connected.

“Facebook, with its mission to make the world more open and connected, provides the perfect platform to apply our technology at a truly global scale,” the Mobile Technologies team said in a statement on Jibbigo’s blog. “We look forward to continuing to develop our technology at Facebook and finding new and interesting ways to apply it to Facebook’s long-term product roadmap.”

Mobile Technologies will join Facebook at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

The product’s designed to give users privacy and peace of mind, as well as a chance to disconnect. “The pocket functions effectively to protect your security, if your data is being tracked or monitored or if your location is being tracked or monitored,” says Adam Harvey, who designed the OFF Pocket in collaboration with Johanna Bloomfield. “But the other part of it, which I think is more interesting, is the psychological aspect; which, you’re placing your phone inside a bag that eliminates your connection with the phone.”

Inside the case, phones can’t send or receive signals across a range of frequencies used for communication. No signals, no data––meaning location’s untraceable and texts and calls don’t land.

Harvey’s OFF Pocket prototype debuted last year at January’s “Stealth Wear” exhibition (hosted by TANK Magazine and presented by Primitive London) along with his anti-drone garments. “The timing worked out well for the show because that was right around when drones became a daily news item,” he says. “And now it happens that I’m launching this product when cell phone tracking’s a daily news item.”

Lately, current events portray U.S. agencies less like Uncle Sam and more like Big Brother. “The recent news with the NSA, Edward Snowden, Verizon, XKeystroke and so on is only supporting––it’s providing a good argument for what people should have already been thinking about…in the last 12 years since the introduction of the Patriot Act, when we’ve been engaged in the dilemma of trading our privacy for security,” Harvey says. “Security is more important, but there is a limit. You can’t take that logic and scale it infinitely.”

“At some point people will want their privacy back and that’s what’s happening now,” he continues. “The problem is that you can’t simply ask for your privacy back.”

Harvey sees the OFF Pocket appealing to a wide audience, from middle-to-high school tweens and teens evading parents’ tracking to journalists, politicians and security industry employees. Its democratic applicability suits the Kickstarter platform well.

“This is what I see as a highly functional security or privacy product, and putting it on Kickstarter is offering it to anyone,” Harvey says. “And I think that’s important; that is, providing security, but anybody could buy it–– whether you’re a whistleblower at the NSA or you work at home and you need a break from your phone or you’re just concerned about security.”

With 11 days left, OFF Pocket’s already cleared its funding goal of $35,000 by $10,000. Its success might drive others to follow Harvey’s lead into privatized privacy.

“It’s also proving to people that there’s a market for privacy-type items,” Harvey says. “I think people are gonna see this and realize that hey, I’m onto something, and that’ll probably motivate other people to explore the business side to privacy.”

Adding to the pros: Locket CEO Yunha Kim promises the Android app won’t just make mobile ads less annoying––it’ll make them entertaining.

“What we’re trying to do is change how mobile advertising works,” she says. “We want to make sure that every single ad we put out there is enjoyable, that they’re aesthetically pleasing.”

Beautiful or not, monetized mobile ads on lockscreens could raise a lot of dough for consumers. Kim says people look at their lockscreens 150 times a day. Multiplied by the million Android users out there, that’s a lot of screentime-turned-dollars-and-cents.

Locket’s model could potentially change the mobile ad game, as it rewards customers for their attention like no other company does, despite past attempts to harness the power of the platform. Both angel investors and Great Oaks Venture Capital took notice. Kim says it took three business days to acquire funding from the latter, who pumped in $500,000 in April. “We went in to pitch [and] we heard back in 24 hours,” Kim says.

Though Great Oaks takes a hands-off approach, Kim notes the VC firm has provided more than just financial support.

“We are a team of six, including myself. Yesterday we launched and we were getting 10,000 users downloading within a few hours and we really needed help. I called them up at one in the morning saying, ‘We are getting too many emails, we don’t know how to respond,’” Kim says.

 “He responded saying, ‘How many interns did you need?’” she says.

A quickly-increasing user base will do nothing but boost Locket’s growth goals, which also involve fundraising and working with more advertisers. Right now, users get a penny per ad view and can only earn 3 cents an hour; but Kim says these numbers might not stick. The app’s also planning to give customers choice in redeeming their accumulated change. Currently, they can cash in anything they’ve racked up past the $10 mark via Paypal, but in the future, Kim sees people donating to charity, purchasing gift cards and paying down their phone bills.

Importantly, though, Kim says Locket’s not only about making money. Instead, her goals for the mobile ad world are more idealistic.

“The beauty of…high quality print ads has been lost in mobile advertising and we want to bring that back,” she says. “We don’t want users to be just sitting there and unlocking their phones to get the money. We want them to be able to enjoy the ads.”

When ads appear on lock screens, users can choose by swiping left or right whether to engage or not. With participation pretty much optional across the app, Locket may succeed in making advertising less annoying to some consumers. But if you find yourself bummed by overexposure to ads, remember you’ve only got yourself to thank––and with Locket, three cents more than you had a second ago.

Images provided by Yunha Kim of Locket

“Proven is changing the way people apply and experience the job hunt, making it easier and more accessible by unchaining job seekers from their computers,” writes CEO and Proven co-founder Pablo Fuentes in an email.

Loosening the shackles binding people to their desktops lets users apply for jobs pretty much anytime, anywhere. That’s especially helpful when getting to a listing first could mean a leg up.

“Most people, especially millennials, are never further than about 5 feet from their phones and they can use this to their advantage,” Fuentes writes. “From a recent study we conducted, we found that people that applied for a new job listing within the first day of it being listed were 70% more likely to be noticed by recruiters and they also received more positive responses as well.”

Applying to jobs via mobile makes the process flexible, convenient and almost pleasant (it is still job hunting, after all). Résumés are reachable via email then download code, and cover letters get copy-pasted into the app. Otherwise you can just write new ones in Proven itself; there’s even a résumé template.

The whole thing takes a very few minutes and screen taps if you’re already set on content, though some listings do require applicants jump through additional hoops. The short time it takes to apply is perfect for users casting a wide net.

“In this job market, people have to apply for more jobs and this especially applies to millennials trying to land their first job,” Fuentes writes. “Proven makes it easier to not only monitor new postings, but also create a resume and apply right away so millennials can be that much closer to being first in line to be considered for an open position.”

Earlier this week, the 2009 startup received an extra push from investors by way of $1 million in seed funding. Capital behind Proven now totals $3.8 million, with Andreessen Horowitz, Kapor Capital, Founder Collective, Greylock Partners, and other angels contributing to Wednesday’s million-dollar round.

“Our goal is to continuously improve the job hunting experience and today’s funding bump takes us so much closer to achieving just that,” Fuentes writes. “The funding will help us further develop our mobile and backend technology, expand the platform and broaden our growing scope of partners.”

The company will reorganize itself into four engineering groups, reorganize executive positions, and realign its product teams as it struggles to unify itself across an unwieldy diverse product offering. The $74 billion company with over 98,000 employees seeks to accelerate product development to increase the appeal of its smartphone and tablet offerings as it struggles to adapt to a post-PC world. Empowered by desktop sales for over three decades, the company’s revenues have faltered as the world embraces tablets and other mobile devices. PC shipments declined 11.4 percent globally in the second quarter, the fifth consecutive quarter of year-on-year decline, according to industry research firm IDC.

“As devices proliferate, it has become clearer that consumers crave one experience across all of their technology,” Microsoft CEO’s Steve Ballmer wrote in a lengthy memo titled “One Microsoft.” “…As technology moves from people’s desks to everywhere in their lives, it should become simpler, not more complex. And our products and services should operate as one experience across every device. …We realized we could bring those strengths together in a unique, differentiated experience that will delight consumers and customers. …In the end, we realized our strengths are in high-value activities, powering devices and enterprise services.  Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most.”

Certain to set the tone for the rest of Ballmer’s tenure, the moves are seen by some analysts as a way to consolidate an encumbered organization struggling with too many competing heads and department infighting.

“You don’t do a major reorganization like this unless you have some serious problems,” BGC analyst Colin Gillis told Reuters. “It consolidates power around the CEO.”

Ballmer announced four new engineering leaders and their prospective groups, including:

• Terry Myerson, currently the Windows Phone chief, will serve as executive vice president for operating system engineering, including Windows, Windows Phone and the Xbox operating system.

• Satya Nadella, formerly the president of Microsoft’s Server & Tools group, will  serve as EVP for cloud and enterprise engineering. This will include his previous product groups as well as Windows Embedded and Global Foundation Services, Microsoft’s network of data centers

• Julie Larson-Green, formerly the head of Windows engineering, will become the executive vice president of devices and studio engineering, which includes the Microsoft Surface tablet, the Xbox hardware and mice and keyboards.

• Qi Lu, formerly president of the Online Services Division, will serve as executive vice president of apps and services engineering, including current Bing product teams, the vast majority of Microsoft Office, Skype, the Lync communications service as well as the Yammer business social network.

No job cuts have been announced with the overhaul in the short term.

“Mobile is coming into its own as a powerhouse advertising medium,” says Anna Bager, Vice President and General Manager, Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, U.S. IAB. “Today’s advertising is happening in a world where ad campaigns can be planned and bought across global networks on multiple media, but the massive and continuing acceleration of mobile’s international impact provides new and exciting frontiers for content and communication.”

More specifically, the numbers indicate mobile search grew 88.8 percent, mobile display ads grew 87.3 percent, and mobile message ads jumped 40.2 percent.

When it came to geography, Asia Pacific and North America were nearly neck and neck in mobile ad spend, with Asia Pacific earning $3.558 billion and North America at $3.525 billion. In terms of international revenue breakdown, IAB reported:

• Asia-Pacific: 40.2% ($3.558 billion)

• North America: 39.8% ($3.525 billion)

• Western Europe: 16.9% ($1.499 billion)

• Central Europe: 1.3% ($112 million)

• Middle East & Africa: 1.2% ($109 million)

• Latin America: 0.6% ($50 million)

“This study is extremely relevant to advertisers as it assists companies to make investment decisions and accurately access market opportunities as we experience a monumental shift across communication platforms,” explained Kimon Zorbas, CEO of IAB Europe. “In Europe we are still experiencing significant economic turmoil and unemployment. Despite this reality, our sector is a positive beacon for recovery and growth. The message to European policy makers is they should take into careful consideration the promising opportunities our sector offers and focus on removing barriers to growth.”

Each region showed considerable growth. North America grew the fastest at an 111 percent increase in 2012 over 2011, while Latin America grew 71 percent, Central Europe 69 percent, Middle-East and Africa 68 percent, and Asia-Pacific 60 percent.

“From a creative and communication standpoint, mobile advertising is hyper-personal. But more so than other media, from a business perspective, it is global,” said Daniel Knapp, Director Advertising Research at IHS, and author of the research. “Mobile advertising is being planned, bought and sold across national borders and regions. This makes a global market sizing initiative ever more urgent.”

Mobile ad spending rides a growth wave fueled by wide smartphone use, increased 3G and 4G penetration, and more intelligently targeted ad technology.

“We have seen a shift from a very fragmented landscape to one that is becoming more networked,“ Knapp explained. “Technological innovation has simplified buying mobile inventory at scale, enabling advertisers to better reach larger audiences across multiple publishers and advertising networks.”

The first quarter of 2013 alone saw India’s smartphone adoption grow an impressive 163 percent, four times faster than the global average of 39 percent. India also outpaces the rest of the world in year over year sales, with China at 86 percent, Japan at 24 percent, and the US at 19 percent.

The research firm credits better distribution networks from major players like Apple and Samsung for the surge. Local marketers such as Micromax, an Indian mobile company using an Android OEM, also spur that growth.

India’s growth in smartphone adoption is hardly surprising considering its vast population, a growing middleclass, and an increasing popularity of consumer electronics in the country boosted by rising incomes.

As companies like Apple and Samsung reach saturation in American and European markets, emerging economies like India are an enticing opportunity. Total smartphone shipments in Western Europe, for example, have dropped 4.2 percent year on year at 43.6 million units, according to recent figures from an IDC analyst. Apple in particular has suffered in the European market, dropping from 25 percent to 20 percent in the first quarter of 2013. In India, however, its market is growing, reaching a 15.6 percent share in the fourth quarter of 2012, thanks to a more localized distribution strategy.

At the same time, domestic players are outpacing global brands in the Indian market, Strategy Analytics points out. Local providers such as Micromax, Karbonn and Spice have all experienced growth rates between 200 to 500 percent annually. Microvendors like Lemon Mobile, which deal mostly in Android phones, have seen sales jump by as much as 1,000 percent.

“The smartphone boom is well underway. India is now a country no major smartphone vendor, component maker or apps developer can ignore”, the report concluded.

Though their messages may self-destruct in 10 seconds, Snapchat’s potential at monetizing its massive user base that has eclipsed the likes of Instagram and Vine is far from a mission impossible. At least that’s what Institutional Venture Partners are betting after leading a $60 million Series B round that values the company at $800 million.

General Catalyst Partners, SV Angel, Benchmark Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participated.

Snapchat lets users send photo and video messages that self-destruct 10 seconds after they’ve been viewed. The service has been particularly popular with 20-somethings, who use it to send sexy photos or party moments they don’t want pasted all over the Internet. Lately, the service has seen its user base extend beyond the younger crowd to a more mainstream audience.

Though the photo sharing service only celebrates its second birthday this September, Snapchat’s users are sharing more than 200 million messages a day, an impressive surge over the 150 million daily messages the service was logging last April. The company does not disclose actual user numbers.

Nor does it disclose how it will make money. But that does not seem to matter to venture capitalists, who reason that a service that has more shares than Instagram will eventually find some way to monetize.

“It’s no secret that Snapchat has yet to turn on its monetization engine,” blogged Dennis Phelps, a General Partner for IVP, which typically only invests in companies with $20 million to $200 million in revenues. “Despite this fact, the financing was intensely competitive – one of the most competitive financings we have been a part of in years.”

Phelps describes his reasoning for the valuation in a top 10 list, including the facts that the company pushed “mobile first,” was “setting the world on fire,” and was a “big fish in a small pond.” Last but not least was “Because they let us.”

“IVP was one of only a handful of firms that were evaluated to lead Snapchat’s recent financing round,” Phelps wrote. “As dedicated later-stage investors, gaining access to elite entrepreneurs at hyper-growth companies remains critical to our investment model. Almost by definition, if IVP decides to invest, a company has already proven itself… Snapchat is clearly a huge success, and we wouldn’t have invested unless we believed that it will become a much larger one.”

Snapchat will use the new funding to spur further growth.

“…In order to continue scaling while developing the Snapchat experience, we needed to build a bigger engineering team and figure out how to pay our server bills,” the company wrote on its blog.

The company is clearly prospering despite the fact that Facebook targeted it with its own generic version of Snapchat- Poke, which went belly up due to lack of user interest.

Yet don’t expect Facebook to be scooping up the company anytime soon. Rumors abound that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has taken a personal interest in Snapchat, but the company’s 23-year old CEO maintains Snapchat is not for sale.

“Acquisitions can be pretty distracting,” Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s CEO, told AllThingsD. “We feel like this is early innings in a highly competitive marketplace. We’re just really focused on building right now.”

In addition to the funding, the company announced that Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton will join Snapchat’s board as an independent member.