Pepper: a new Windows Phone app making live music more social

Wouldn't it be useful if you were able to join a music-focused community on your Windows Phone, which would enable you to search, filter and attend music events? An app and service called Pepper aims to provide such functionality. Launching on Windows Phone (iOS, Blackberry and Android ports on the way), Pepper brings a new social network to the platform.

Finding live music events near your location has now been made a whole lot easier. Once an account has been created (takes two minutes through the app itself) users are able to follow venues and artists to find out where and when the next interesting event is. Any gigs or club nights that are to be attended can then be shared with friends to bring a number of people together for the evening. Best of all - it's free.

Once at the desired event, users can check-in (separate from other third-party services) and share photos and comments with other Pepper users. While there are apps for Windows Phone that make it convenient for smartphone owners to listen and share music via streaming and downloads, the features of Pepper makes live music (which is arguably a more exciting experience than headphones) feel much more socially connected.

As well as checking out the latest happenings around the set location and visiting music events, Pepper allows users to follow favourite venues, promoters and artists and find events that match music tastes from across the UK. Any events that are relevant can be added to the calendar to serve as a reminder and eliminate the possibility of missing them.

Updates from friends who are added on Pepper that share events they're interested in, will be displayed on a news feed where invites can be sent out as well as discovering any gigs you may not be aware of. The beauty of this functionality on the service is there's no longer the requirement to actively search for local unsigned artists who may be playing live music at nearby venues. It's all available on the smartphone.

To make the discovery of new music that users are most likely to enjoy more convenient, Pepper scans the local library of tracks (can be configured in the settings). Coupled with recommendations from added friends as well as the app itself, the experience is fairly personal.

With Android, Blackberry and iPhone versions of Pepper on the way, the service is set to expand with cross-platform support. Check out the official website for more information (and where venues, artists and promoters can enter details).

You can download Pepper from the Marketplace for free.