Featured image credit: Joshua Peacock on Unsplash
Our weekly tech round-up from the world of ticketing and associated industries…
MLB overhauls app features
Major League Baseball (MLB) has overhauled its official mobile, streaming, and ticketing applications for the 2023 season as it seeks to boost fan engagement.
The official MLB app has been completely redesigned to make it easier to follow favourite teams and players, either as a second screen or as an alternative to live coverage, with a personalised feed and watch hub focusing on these preferences.
MLB’s relationship with Apple, which broadcasts of Friday Night Baseball, is in evidence with ‘live activity integration’ on iOS 16. This feature allows users to add any live score to their lock screen, meaning they can keep up the action just by picking up their device.
The MLB Ballpark app, which is designed for fans in attendances, has been overhauled to take into account the league’s new ticketing arrangements for 2023. MLB’s new priority is to work with as many ticketing providers as possible, including StubHub and SeatGeek, its new official fan-to-fan marketplace.
Fans will also be able to claim commemorative non-fungible token (NFT) based tickets as a memento of their visit through MLB’s partnership with digital collectible specialist Candy Digital.
Chris Marinak, MLB chief operations and strategy officer, said: “The capabilities that you’re seeing for this particular season are really around creating this integrated ecosystem of tickets. It’s a lot of these infrastructure elements that tie together the whole experience of getting a ticket into a seamless experience for the fan.”
Anti-bot developer invests in R&D
DataDome, the cybersecurity startup which develops anti-bot technology, has secured $42m in new financing to fuel its expansion plans.
DataDome, which has regional headquarters in France, the US and Singapore, said the Series C was led by InfraVia Growth, while existing investors Elephant and ISAI and took stakes.
DataDome’s bot and online fraud solution assesses the intent of a visit in real time to detect and mitigate attacks on mobile apps, websites, and APIs.
“This cash infusion will fund global commercial rollout and R&D efforts to ensure that our offering continues to raise the bar, and stays well ahead of bot developers and fraudsters,” said Benjamin Fabre, chief executive and co-founder of DataDome. “In InfraVia, we have an investor who trusts in and shares our vision, and brings years of valuable experience helping companies scale globally. Threat actors don’t stand a chance.”
Coachella boosts streaming service
Coachella has announced plans to enhance its global coverage with the addition of three extra live stream feeds.
For the first time, the festival will be live on YouTube across all six stages on both weekends starting April 14 and continuing on April 21 at the same time. Performances will also be made available each night following the evening’s live stream, while many of the top-billed acts will also be available on demand.
In 2022, YouTube launched several festival-firsts including the integration of YouTube Shorts and merch purchasing options. This year will see a continuation of online fan experiences with exclusive content from Blackpink and artists and creators like Amelia DiMoldenberg of Chicken Shop Date.
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