June 12, 2010

iBroadway and Me: Going Mobile


The I's have it. The iPad came out in April.  Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone 4 this week.  And now, comes iBroadway, a new app that offers access to everything you want to know about shows on and off the Great White Way. I’m particularly excited about the latter because among its features are news and reviews from a selected group of theater bloggers that includes me!

iBroadway has been jointly developed by Art Meets Commerce, the advertising and marketing firm that has done work for shows ranging from the current production of Fela! to last seaon’s acclaimed revival of Finian’s Rainbow; and The Zumobi Network, a mobile publishing company whose clients include Better Homes & Gardens, Iron Man Central and msnbc. 

The new app they’ve put together is kind of one-stop shopping for theater lovers. It has all kinds of information on shows playing in New York, including a synopsis of the plot, rundowns of the actors currently performing in the show and the creative team who originally put it together, a list of the awards and nominations the production has gotten and essential info like where the show is playing (you can Google map it) and its running time. 

There are also photos and videos, links for iTunes so that you can download cast recordings right onto your playlist and all kinds of social media hookups so that you can share all this stuff via email, Facebook or Twitter. Plus there’s a handy button that makes it easy to buy tickets right from your mobile device. I mean really easy: ticket prices and available discounts are listed, as are performance times and box office schedules; there are even seating charts and info about wheelchair accessibility.

If you still want to know more—and what theater lover doesn’t—there are links (just click  the “News” tab) to postings by my fellow bloggers Chris Caggiano of Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals and Aaron Riccio of 'Kül: That Sounds Cool and, of course, by me. It’s all available for free on iTunes or you can download the app by clicking here.
 
As you probably can tell, I was thrilled—and still amwhen I got the call asking me if I wanted to be one of the app’s pioneer contributors.  So much so that I decided to celebrate with a new logo that you’ll find at the top of this page.  It was designed for me by a terrific illustrator named Gary Randall and will now appear wherever you find Broadway & Me. 

Which is now a lot of places since I’ve been, as they say, expanding the brand over the last year or so.  You can follow me on Twitter and on Facebook.  You can also read B&Me on your Kindle or you can buy B&Me T-shirts, bags and other goodies at the Broadway & Me store. And now, of course, I’ve gone mobile so you can keep in touch via iBroadway.

2 comments:

Sophfronia said...

Congratulations Janice! Downloading the app now!

By the way, I saw fences in April and LOVED IT! Also got to go to opening night party. When are you seeing it? Or did I miss that review?

Cheers,

Sophfronia

jan@broadwayandme said...

Thanks, Sophfronia. There's a lot of good stuff on the iBroadway app. Enjoy it all. And yes, I did see Fences and Red and La Cage aux Folles and Million Dollar Quartet and Sondheim on Sondheim and Everyday Rapture. But there was such a crush of openings at the end of the season that I just haven't had a chance to weigh in on them. Instead, have been trying to do the smaller shows with more limited runs. But I do regret not having written about Fences (which I think totally deserves its Tonys for Best Revival and for both Denzel Washington and Viola Davis) because I also wanted to talk about the already-frenzied audience's reaction to Oprah's being in the house the night I saw the show!