Waist Deep in the Media Swamp

[previous related posts  - Post #1 & Post # 2]

In my continuing quest to configure (and figure out)  iTunes Ping for  Jimmy Z and the ZTribe, now that we have a profile on Ping and a few fans the next hurdle is how to get our shows listed. Featured artists have concert listings, but not independents.

As per an email from Apple, I wrote to concerts@itunes.com and got this auto-reply:

Thanks for your message regarding the concert feature of iTunes Ping. We currently have shows listed for the US iTunes Store from Ticketmaster.com, Livenation.com and TicketWeb.com. We are planning on adding more concerts in the near future. If your show is ticketed by one of the companies above, pls follow up with your contacts at the respective ticketing companies.
If your show is not ticketed by Ticketmaster, Live Nation or TicketWeb, please send us the information below:
Artist Name:
Event Date:
Venue:
Ticketing Company:

Once again, Apple is the gatekeeper, controlling information that gets posted. And if you are not touring major venues, then you have to go through hoops. It makes me wonder if Apple getting kickbacks from the major ticket vendors to do this.

Since most of Jimmy’s gigs are in small venues with no advance ticket sales, I wrote them about what to do and have not heard back (5 days so far).

I also submitted one gig with “At Door” as the Ticketing Company and we’ll see what happens.

Update – I got my answer.

Also, iTunes 10.01 was released and has some Ping related features – a sidebar and a Ping drop down menu button on each song in iTunes.

Are they useful? Where is this heading? It’d be nice to see a blog by Apple on all this …

Update December 13, 2010 – I was  asked to condense all my tribulations with Apple and Ping into one long article that is now posted on Michael Brandvold’s great Music Marketing site, here.