Tourb.us Concert Widget – a Review

Tourb.us is a service that helps users stay on top of live shows that are coming to their area.  Tourb.us generates email alerts, text messages, RSS feeds, and iCal feeds based on user preferences when a user’s favorite bands are playing locally.  There is also a social networking component in which users set up profiles and interact with others based on shared band interests.

The Tourb.us widget is an extension of the site’s core concert reminder service, and dynamically generates a badge that can be placed on the user’s blog or personal Web site that displays upcoming shows that the publisher might be interested in based on their implicit and explicit preferences.

Tourb.us accepts allows users to synch information from their Last.FM accounts or upload files from their iTunes, which means that once a user is configured properly, the Tourb.us service can be powered by implicit data.  The user also has the option to explicitly indicate which bands they like on the Tourb.us destination site.

Applications and Opportunity

As the music industry continues its transition from a hit culture to a long tail culture in which listeners are able to find obscure bands which match their tastes, it is becoming harder and harder to keep track of which bands are coming in town when. 

Tourb.US attempts to address this problem by tying into some of the more popular music listening services like Last.FM and iTunes, and dynamically reminding the user when bands they might be interested in are in town.

I see the Tourb.us widget being used a couple of different ways.  Like the Last.FM widget, folks may want to use this widget to show off all of the cool music they are into.  It’s also conceivable that folks might also want to use this as a social meetup / stalker service – readers of a person’s blog can track what shows the publisher will be attending.

But the primary way that I see folks using this widget is as a show reminder service for themselves.  In many ways, having your show alerts show up as a badge on your blog is more convenient than other alert mechanisms as it’s less intrusive.  If you assume that most blog publishers visit their own blogs at least once a day, the ability to put a quick visual snapshot of cool upcoming shows is a handy tool.

Configuration

The widget link is located in the footer of the site, and triggers a widget configuration page that allows the user to choose what types of shows to include (yes and maybe), how many upcoming shows to include, which of five designs to use, and what link back format to use.  As far as I can tell, “maybe” shows are all shows which the user might want to attend based on their listening habits.

There is a useful, ajaxy preview tool in the right margin which updates as the user selects their widget preferences.  Overall, I had no problems configuring my Tourb.US widget.

Testing

The Tourb.us widget is a script, so it does not work with MySpace or Blogger posts.  I had no problems adding the widget to Typepad.  At the time of writing, refreshes of Blogger templates were not working.  I'll check back in with the results of this testing once Blogger is working again.

Editorial

I like this widget.

I like that it can be powered solely by implicit data, that its personalized to the user’s music and location preferences, and that it ties back into a social networking service.

The key to the whole thing, I think, it its ability to synch with Last.FM and iTunes.  Without this functionality, Tourb.us would be just another service that would be very cool if only I had the time to add data to it.  With this functionality, it is something that I plan to start using immediately.

The Last.FM integration is flawless.  All you need to do is to enter your Last.FM user name, and your Tourb.uz widgets will start populating.  The iTunes integration is a little more complicated, as you need to manually generate an XML file from your iTunes account, and upload that to Tourb.us.  Tourb.us does do a very good job of explaining exactly how to do this, however.

I think the biggest thing that the Tourb.us widget has going for it is that it creeps very close to being a “need to have” service, as opposed to a “nice to have.”  Nothing bugs me more than missing a favorite band at a local venue.  Tourb.us could potentially solve this.

In terms of functionality, Tourb.us offers just about everything that I would want.  The only thing that’s missing is an expansive database of artist / show information.  A number of my favorite artists are still not their database including some pretty well known acts like Weezer and G. Love.  The good news is that by virtue of its Last.FM and iTunes synching capabilities, Tourb.us has a handy means of prioritizing new bands to add to their database.

If Tourb.us can find a cost efficient way of keeping their db up to date, and the tools to synch with services like Last.FM and iTunes remain open to them, I would expect to start seeing a lot more of these widgets showing up around the Web.

Comments

[gary]

Thanks for the great review!

We currently know about a band only if they've played a show in one of our supported cities in the past few months. But we still track these bands on your "wishlist" and will automatically make them a favorite band for you when they play a show in your area.

Hopefully you'll never miss another good show!

[Cadillac Sky Concerts]

Yeah!Its often easy to miss performances by your favorite bands unless you continually keep on top of the listings in local media.It is available for both Windows and Mac OS X and supports worldwide searches.There are a crop of Music 2.0 services out there that will ensure you will never miss your favorite acts again

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