One day after we saw Live Nation buy setlist wiki site Setlist.fm, we’ve got another — albeit smaller — acquisition in the Live Music Tech space. Complex Media, an “online network for 20-something men,” has acquired the concert-focused social site Superglued.
Though decidedly smaller and scrappier than similar sites like Songkick, Thrillcall, Bandsintown and Jambase, Superglued always focused much more on the social experience around concerts — with ticketing and concert listings as secondary — thereby attempting to carve out a distinct niche from those other services. For example, they were one of the first services to really start tapping into the real-time social activity surrounding the show experience, be it Foursquare check-ins or concert-focused chatter on Twitter/Facebook.
Of course, turning the social concert experience into a big revenue generator is probably even harder than making money off of affiliate ticketing fees, so it’s no big surprise they eventually sought out a buyer. But even if this sale wasn’t a big one (as I suspect it wasn’t), it’s still cool to see some more activity around sites in this tiny niche space I like to call Live Music Tech. To-date, Bandsintown, Setlist.fm, and Superglued have all been acquired, so it’ll be interesting to see what other sites might be ripe for the next acquisition.
