Next week, 1200 indie (and not-so-indie) rock bands will descend upon New York City for the annual CMJ Music Marathon. Keeping up with all the bands playing at bars and clubs across the city, and who is going to which shows, can be a daunting task even for the most dedicated hipsters. But not to fear, SuperGlued just launched a free iPhone app (iTunes link) with all the CMJ music show listings (and more) that lets you see Tweets about each show, Tweet out your own messages, and share pictures you take via the app.
The launch is timed for CMJ, but it works anywhere. The app pulls in show listings from Last.fm, Livenation, local show listings, and those added by members. The app lets you indicate that you are going to a particular show.
It also lets you gawk at other people at shows, by snapping pictures and sharing them through the app, or checking out Tweets about that show. It acts as a Twitter client as well, letting you Tweet to your friends whether or not a show is worth coming out to, or just to show your appreciation for a particularly rocking song. (The rock-show Tweet is the digital equivalent of holding up a lighter, I guess). Each Tweet is accompanied with a short link to that show’s listing page on SuperGlued (like this one) , which also shows who else is going.
SuperGlued was founded by Rush Doshi, an ex-AOL product developer, and Tom Plunkett, who’s day job appropriately enough is as the CTO of Gawker. Perhaps that’s where the virtual voyeurism comes from.
On the one hand, it’s seems pretty silly to be looking down at your iPhone when you are at alive show instead of enjoying the band (unless the band sucks). On the other hand, it’s probably easier to have a conversation through Twitter than shouting over the amps.
The app works great for finding shows and seems to capture a pretty comprehensive set of listings. But the one thing it needs is better filters. For instance, it doesn’t let you see which shows near you have the most people going to them. Doshi says that is a feature they plan on adding in the future.
I like apps like SuperGlued because they try to do one thing well. You could just look at your normal Twitter stream for shows your friends are going to, but you’d probably only catch a few. SuperGlued shows you Tweets from everyone about a particular show or band. It’s an interest stream instead of a friend stream.
As realtime streams get more and more noisy, one way to cut down the noise is to use Twitter apps like SuperGlued that focus on a single topic or purpose. And it just so happens that SuperGlued is focused on finding you the right noise to enjoy, so to speak.