Recently, the browser wars have begun to get interesting. For example, the launch of Google Instant and Bing’s guided search to name but a few features. Results are now being displayed in very useful boxes instead of dumbed-down single-purpose information.
Google search onebox has been going for a while and aggregates movie names, theatres and times pulling in locations of nearest films, times and even certificates. Not to be outdone, Bing went with the Bing Box which works in a similar fashion. Now Yahoo! has gone one step further and is now pulling data from its many partners.
One of them is Songkick.com and it’s all done via their API. Songkick, a UK based start-up, merges and presents gig listings with a whole host of related information such as fan buzz, ticketing and even tweets sent by fans while they are at. Searching for an artist in Yahoo! will now include Songkick links which show the latest gigs and crucially, the ones located near the user using geo-IP.
Oddly enough for a UK startup, it’s only handling gig info from the US but should be rolled out to other areas soon. Since 2007, Songkick has been working on its database and has been relatively niche and used by a hard core of concert goers. Now, with the Yahoo! tie-in, traffic is soaring which is certainly welcome news for investors.
Although rivals have location-based gig alerts, with Last.fm one such popular service, Songkick is one of the first to jump into bed with a big search engine. Now, the Facebook app is in the pipeline the future looks bright for Songkick.com
