Concert Locator ConcertCrowd Adds Streaming Audio

Social and location-based live concert locator, ConcertCrowd, has added the ability for users to stream audio from artists coming to town through an exclusive partnership with Rdio. As Hypebot reported previously, ConcertCrowd is a Facebook application that connects with a user’s Facebook page to help discover upcoming shows of their favorite artists (artists they currently “like”), as well as provides recommendations based on how many of a user’s friends like a particular artist.

Under a complete redesign from when we last reported, ConcertCrowd now holds a global database of concert listings, full integration with a user’s Facebook network, a custom recommendation engine, direct ticket links, social sharing features, a revamped interface, artist search, and now – streaming audio.

"After a successful beta launch a few months back, and with a community of over 3,000 installed users, we took the next logical step for the app and partnered with Rdio to give our users what they wanted most: the ability to listen to bands before they saw them live," said Arman Javaherian, ConcertCrowd founder.

"This is the first time any app has combined concert listings, streaming audio and Facebook in this way and we know that once users try our new version, they’ll wonder why it wasn’t done sooner."

Rdio subscribers can listen to full tracks and albums within ConcertCrowd, while non-subscribers are limited to 30-second samples for free.

The User Experience

After spending several minutes within the new ConcertCrowd app, the overall service has
improved tremendously. Being a non-Rdio subscriber, I was only allowed access to 30-second snippets, but all the streams operated smoothly and continuously. More importantly, however, being able to preview the artists made it much easier to gauge who I’d actually be interested in seeing live – much more so than any bio, and far more effective than being given a link to an external location. The interface is simple, uniform, and makes browsing through artists painless. 

Within each artist box (see screenshot), there contains a music player, a button to see which friends of
mine “like” a particular artist, the ability to share the event on my wall, and the ability to group message friends about the event. Beneath each artist box are event details with links to purchase tickets. 

The Verdict

Overall, the new ConcertCrowd Facebook app works quite well and certainly makes the process of finding local concerts much more streamlined, especially with the ability to perform all the tasks one typically undertakes when searching for a live concert contained within one easy-to-use application. And with an emphasis on social sharing, word of mouth concert going may have just been taken to a new level.

Click here to download the (free) ConcertCrowd Facebook application.