Clues from Microsoft lead music fans on merry chase to find concerts promoting new Kin phone

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Microsoft Kin concerts lead fans on merry chase

NEW YORK — Free concerts. Open bar. Big names. Small venues. The catch?

You’ve got to find them first, and only a string of tweets, texts, Facebook updates and blog posts will lead you there.

Microsoft Corp. is combining social media and detective work to market its new Kin cell phone by throwing surprise concerts with bands such as Passion Pit and the Black Keys in four cities this month.

But key details such as the time and location are trickled out through social networking in the days and hours leading up to the show online by various sources: Microsoft, the bands and key people in each city with varied social networks.

The premise, the brainchild of marketing agency Exposure, taps into Microsoft’s target audience for the phone — teens and twenty-somethings who text and tweet rather than call and e-mail. It skips right over other demographics — older people who are more tethered to e-mail and voice calling.

So far, the Kin “Spot” campaign is generating buzz. Last week, hours before Passion Pit was to play in New York, fans posted on Twitter and Facebook, waiting to find out the location. The band sent clues via Twitter and its own site, narrowing down the location to the Tribeca neighborhood.

There’s pressure to find out the location first because the concerts are limited to several hundred people. And the venues are more apt to be auto body shops than concert halls, so it’s not easy to guess.

Shows have already taken place in San Francisco and New York and will take place later this month in Chicago and Atlanta.

Would-be concert-goers should check out Kin’s Facebook page and its Twitter feed to see who is playing. Stay tuned to those sites and check out pages for upcoming bands as the weekend nears to find out locations and times.

Garrett Wilson waited nearly 4 hours in line to see The Black Keys in New York on Saturday night. He said he came for the music and had never heard of the Kin. The 36-year-old saw postings on the rock band’s Facebook page on Friday, and learned the show would be in Tribeca, with the final location announced at 5 p.m. Saturday. So just before then, the 36-year-old positioned himself in Tribeca on his motorcycle waiting.

“I was all over their page at 5:05, saying ‘Where’s the info?’” he said.

He used his iPhone to figure out the location from the band’s Facebook page. He was in line by 5:15 — behind five dozen people.