Bing, the Microsoft search engine launched last year, will now include listings from the secondary ticketing market as part of its search protocol.
Last week, live event search engine FanSnap announced a new partnership with Bing in which FanSnap’s large base of ticket listings will now appear in event-related searches on the site.
In last week’s statement, Stefan Weitz, Director for Bing, noted: “With FanSnap integration into Bing, fans now have access to the most comprehensive and accurate ticket results all in one place.”
FanSnap boasts listings for 14 million tickets from over 50 of the country’s leading ticket brokers and secondary ticketing sites, including StubHub, TicketNetwork, Barry’s Tickets and Razorgator. FanSnap Maps (SM), the company’s patent-pending collection of interactive maps, will also be available on Bing searches. These maps allow fans to compare prices between and within sections, with “heat map” markers giving a quick visual on a section’s price range. Users may then save specific seats to a short list which they can use for comparison after they’re done browsing. The “Best Value” button provides the best seating deals available for the listings at that time. Some venue maps even provide photos shot from specific seats to show the fan’s perspective in that seat.
With this partnership, secondary ticket listings and maps are brought directly to the Bing user, with price comparisons made simple. As Weitz stated, “By incorporating FanSnap’s interactive maps into Bing, we are making it easier for consumers to compare prices and sample views to make the best decision about which tickets to purchase.”
FanSnap’s co-founder and CEO Mike Janes sees the move as a significant one for his company, as well as for the ticketing landscape. “The Bing-FanSnap partnership is a first for our industry, further extends FanSnap’s leadership position in ticket comparison-shopping, and is a great thing for the more than 50 ticket companies whose tickets are displayed in FanSnap’s search results. Fans searching for event tickets on a major search engine will for the first time actually see tickets, within our patent-pending interactive maps, that they can immediately buy from our ticketing partners.”
FanSnap’s sports listings went live on Bing last week, with theater and concert listings scheduled to list in the coming weeks.
The Palo Alto based FanSnap was founded in 2007 and since then has built numerous partnerships with, including those listed above, TicketsNow, Ace Ticket, AllShows.com and Gold Coast Tickets and others. FanSnap is also provides co-branded ticket comparison shopping for a variety of online media companies, including Time Warner’s RoadRunner.com and Pollstar.