What is this: rise of the Digg clones? Today we learned that TicketMaster, high wizard of all things ticket-related, is also launching a Digg-like site for music news and links.
Longer feature articles appear on the left of the page, providing links to both TicketMaster and iLike, and that's the interesting aspect here. We recently mentioned that TicketMaster has bought a 25% stake in iLike, and we wonder if iLike had anything to do with this "2.0" attempt. (Another aspect we might look into: iLike and Flixster are crosslinking to each other - see the bottom of the sites. Is this just a link swap, or are the two connected in some way? Would Flixster be a potential TicketMaster investment or acquisition? Am I just speculating wildly? ;) ).
It's hard to see what TicketMaster is trying to achieve here, and I would have preferred a "Digg for music", with the ability to play licensed MP3s on the page itself, alongside links to buy tickets to concerts or get the CD.
Update: I just spotted that NoiseTap was developed by CottonBlend, TicketMaster's creative agency.