The Chirpify dashboard turns Twitter into a transactional platform

Twitter is great for sharing content. But when it comes to actually conducting commerce, the fast-growing social networking service leaves something to be desired. Portland’s Chirpify wants to solve that problem, and it just landed $1.3 million in a first round of funding from a group of angel investors that includes BuddyTV CEO Andy Liu; Geoff Entress; former Facebook executive Rudy Gadre; HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes; Voyager Capital and others.

The company also today is announcing the launch of what it is calling Twitter Commerce for Digital Content, a new way for musicians to sell music and concert tickets via Twitter.

“Chirpify now makes it possible to sell digital content in-stream on Twitter, enabling musicians and artists to sell direct to their fans and control their own distribution,” said Chirpify CEO and Founder Chris Teso in a release.. “People already use Twitter to follow the brands, musicians and others they care about, so why can’t they get the latest product or hot new song right through Twitter? Now they can.”

Here’s how it works:

Artists upload content to a Chirpify dashboard, and click to tweet. Consumers then use Chirpify to connect their Twitter and PayPal accounts, and once linked reply to the tweet with something like “@favoriteartist buy” a certain track.

Chirpify then sends a secure download link via direct message and/or email to download the song or other digital content.

The Oregonian’s Mike Rogoway previously covered Chirpify’s transformation, noting how the company changed its name from Sell Simply and how the service was used to power  the popular Tweet-a-Beer app at SXSW earlier this year.

Interestingly, the news comes just as Ticketmaster announced the opening of a new engineering office in Seattle this week. Perhaps selling concert tickets via Twitter is something the ticket giant will look into next.

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