There are already apps that are tackling either the what-should-I-do angle (WillCall, Thrillist). And there are established players in ticketing on the iPhone (StubHub). But Applauze sees itself as a service for both use cases and thinks it can stand out because it is selling tickets directly, not through an affiliate model. Also, the app has some incentives built in, including attractive pricing, to get users on board.

It doesn’t do discounting but Applauze sources tickets from a variety of brokers and venues so it surfaces the latest and cheapest price for each event. Applauze is also banking on the appeal of exclusive access: it’s struck deals with some venues (for now just in Los Angeles and Chicago) that allow Applauze users to sign up for VIP tickets. The venue can choose what that means, but in most cases it means not waiting in line with other ticket holders, getting access to a VIP area or a pre-show meet and greet, and usually a free drink, founder and CEO Kiran Bellubbi told me.

After using the app, I found some really interesting and potentially great things about it, including:

• It’s pretty diverse: Applauze is not just aimed at twentysomethings or music lovers; it’s for concerts large and small, for college and professional sports events, plus free community activities that might appeal to families or parents too. Bellubbi says, thanks to established relationships from Band of the Day, his company has access to “every big event in the U.S. right now.” Under the nearby tab in my city (Philadelphia) I’ve seen everything from a Rihanna stadium concert and an Emmylou Harris concert at a music hall to a Midsummer Night’s Dream performance, the Philadelphia Flower Show, comedy shows and free cultural events at the Franklin Institute and Barnes Foundation — in other words, a wide range.
• It learns about you: The app learns about your preferences as you use it. If you like a particualr event and you rate it, bookmark it, or share it, Applauze interprets that as you like either the venue, the artist or the music category, so the list of events you are shown in the future will more closely align with your tastes. This means that you might eventually see different seats from some venues, for instance, if you have expressed interest in orchestra seating in the past.
• It’s beautifully designed: The design flourishes are really nice, from the pop-up wheel of event categories to Applauze’s custom-designed expanding scroll list. Applauze is very clearly made by a group of interface designers who know what they’re doing. (Band of the Day was runner-up for Apple’s App of the Year in 2011.)
• It’s inherently social: But it doesn’t require you to add new friends to the service. You connect it to your Facebook account so you can invite friends — either via Facebook or your phone’s contacts — from within the app. When you look at an event, if your friends are using the app too, you can see if they are — using the app’s parlance — “in” to attend.
• They’re launching pretty widely right away: The app will be live in 25 cities starting Tuesday.

There are some other things to appreciate about Applauze too, like it doesn’t hide ticketing fees. When you scroll through events, the price you see is the ticket price plus any processing fees or any fees associated with shipping physical tickets (if needed). You also can do everything inside the app: from browsing events, to making the purchase in a few taps, to inviting your friends, adding the event to Passbook, and adding it to your mobile calendar. Applauze has the mobile-first ticketing idea nailed.

The service is starting out in the U.S. but has international aspirations. Bellubbi tells me the U.K., Germany and Dubai are set to have access to Applauze in the next six months.

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955 Dreams’ goal is to allow content owners to create polished publishing experiences, in hopes of helping them stay relevant in this age of mobile apps. A number of content publishers have already approached 955 Dreams about using its platforms to power their apps. But the company believes that it needs to provide one seamless product and that means taking care of not only the publishing but the advertising component as well.

Kiran Bellubbi, founder and CEO of 955 Dreams told me he was looking to create mobile ads that are complementary to the mobile experience and feel at home on a high-quality app. He said he looked at other ad platforms but found they didn’t work with what he was looking to create.

“Monetization is key for mobile apps but how do you introduce ads into high end products without diluting experience? We didn’t say we wanted to build an ad engine but other solutions didn’t make sense. How many ad networks actually build apps? They’re not invested in the same way as we are,” said Bellubbi.

For now, advertisers can place ads in the Band of the Day app, which has racked up more than 2 million downloads on the iPad and iPhone. Red Bull and Burberry are among the first advertisers to market through the app. The ads are basic full-screen interstitial ads for now, but will soon include more dynamic and interactive ads that also offer video. Over time, 955 Dreams hopes to build out an ad network, with high-end brands, who will be able to advertise in other apps that use 955 Dreams ad engine.

I’ve really admired 955 Dreams’ products, which are really well designed and show what next generation publishing can look like on mobile devices. I think it’s great that other content owners can now use 955 Dreams to bring their publications to life. There’s a lot of questions about how newspapers and magazines can evolve and I’d like to think tools like 955 Dreams can be part of the answer. This is why 955 Dreams raised $3.25 million in January, to really re-imagine mobile publishing.

The ad play is in keeping with 955 Dreams’ focus on quality, though I’m not sure if publishers will be as eager to use that. It will depend on some of the brands that are in the network and how well the ads monetize. But it doesn’t hurt to give publishers more tools to make money.

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The funding comes from 500 Startups, m8 Capital, Kapor Capital, Felicis Ventures, and CrunchFund, with 500 Startups’ Dave McClure joining the board. The company plans to use the money to put out more products, expand to other mobile operating systems and grow internationally. 955 Dreams is also taking its Band of the Day iPhone app and bringing it to the iPad.

I’ve been a fan of 955 Dreams because of its uncompromising attention to design, making apps that are built from the ground up to shine on mobile devices. The company is really re-imagining what publishing looks like in a tablet and smartphone era. And it’s creating optimism that digital magazines and interactive books can flourish when given the right treatment.

The secret for 955 Dreams has been the publishing platform it has used to build the History of Jazz and On the Way to Woodstock iPad apps and Band of the Day. All of the releases have been selected by Apple as App of the Week, and Jazz and Woodstock are in the iPad and iPhone Hall of Fame. Band of the Day was named iPhone App of the Year Runner Up by Apple.

Kiran Bellubbi, the founder and CEO of 955 Dreams told me the company was intent to just make a good app itself at first. But then they realized that the platform they created was capable of creating some stellar apps that are not only very fluid but also very lightweight. For 2012, Bellubbi said the company is looking to partner with one or two content companies, who will get access to 955 Dreams’ publishing platform to build their own products. He said they are looking at companies that can reach 10 to 20 million users, and are dedicated to putting out an uncompromising user experience.

“Our goal and vision is to enable users to get beautiful published content on a daily basis. The experience you have when you look at a magazine, the beautiful topography and layout that used to go into a magazine, it somehow got bastardized on the web. We want to build brands on the iPad that brings that back to publishing,” Bellubbi said.

Instead of a Flipboard approach, which he said creates a similar experience for reading all kinds of different content, Bellubbi said he wants 955 Dreams to help give rise to unique apps that reflect the styles and content of each brand.

Bellubbi said in addition to an eventual move to Android, 955 Dreams is also looking at ways to further monetize the platform. Right now, it charges a flat fee for each of its first two iPad apps while Band of the Day is free.

955 Dreams doesn’t appear to be in a big rush to go big or invite a lot of partners to use its platform so it may not get as much attention as some other solutions. But I’m hoping that people take note of what it’s doing. It’s pushing the boundaries of what publishing looks like on tablets and smartphones, and it’s making apps that are ultimately quite valuable to users, who have proven willing to shell out for what 955 offers.

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The iPhone app, which just launched and is now featured as the App Store app of the week, is more like a daily music magazine in that it spotlights bands, providing a bio, review of each artist and a handful of songs to check out. 955 Dreams selects the bands from about 100 labels it has partnered with. In many cases, the artists will be relatively unknown, though 955 Dreams has also signed with big labels like Universal Music Group.

The layout is extremely slick and manages to fit all the best aspects of digital publications into a small screen. Selecting a band on a specific date triggers a short animation and lets you access not only a review and bio of a band, complete with exclusive interviews, but also online social buzz shared by other users as well as some videos. Plus, you can listen to about three to six songs from the artist. There’s also a link to buy albums or single tracks, which takes you to iTunes.

Users can rate their favorite bands, songs and videos on Band of the Day and see a list of their past favorites. They can also share their discoveries online with Facebook friends. The app is free to download and includes a week’s worth of content. To continue getting new content, you need to either pay 99 cents a month or $9.99 a year. A subscription allows users to access all the app’s content at any time.

Co-founder Kiran Bellubbi told me 955 Dreams has hired music writers and editors to create Band of the Day’s bios and articles. He said that’s a departure for the company, which has previously done more to package existing content. But he said 955 Dreams really wanted to take its learnings from its iPad apps and turn it into something very engaging on a daily basis.

“We wanted to build an app that was for daily consumption with extremely high retention rates and we know how to build that well,” Bellubbi told me. “We’ve done long form, we wanted to build a daily short form app for users but we wanted to stay in music and help people figure out how to find music and connect with bands.”

It’s still early in the life of the app, but it feels like a cool way to discover new music. Users won’t enjoy every band, but every day there’s something new. And unlike traditional music magazines, this is really interactive, complete with audio examples of the music being covered. I’ll be interested to see how the business model works, too. It seems like a good value for users, but it also makes sense for the labels and for Apple, which can get a lot of referrals to iTunes. That’s probably one of the reasons it’s the app of the week.

Band of the Day shows that 955 Dreams is thinking bigger than just creating digital music albums. Bellubbi said the company is going to keep expanding and will put out products in the TV and edutainment space. You can download the app here.

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