Features
Facebook Eyes Ticket Market
Ticketing could be the next frontier for Facebook.
The company is considering selling tickets directly through the site and product manager Aditya Koolwal recently told Buzzfeed News that Facebook sees “reducing the friction for buying a ticket is something that we think would be pretty interesting to do eventually.”
The discussion of ticketing apparently came up during talk of Facebook’s events platform, which Koolwal said is being revamped to include notifications about nearby events scheduled by users’ favorite bands or venues.
And since Facebook already has transaction capabilities, linking those notifications to ticket sales could be the next step. Ticketmaster is already reaching fans and offering ticket links from Facebook to the TM site for transactions.
VP and GM of Distributed Commerce Dan Armstrong didn’t seem concerned by the news of Facebook jumping into ticket sales. “Whether it’s with Facebook or with other partners, that is part of our long-term strategy,” he told BuzzFeed. “At the end of the day, it is less an issue of where a ticket sells and more an issue of where a ticket fulfills.”
He added that he doesn’t see Facebook as a competitor since the company isn’t focused on ticket security and concert analytics. “Selling a ticket is not like selling a T-shirt,” he said.