Tedious craze creates tedious press release

I know, I know. They're pouring buckets of ice over themselves for charity, and not for self-publicity. Absolutely. And it's all in aid of... sick kids or whatever. Okay, mostly it seems about the self-publicity.

Now, thought, the harmless self-publicity craze is being hijacked by businesses trying to exploit it. A site called MusicTalkers has been given some exciting news by "music discovery service Timbre":

Lily Allen has experienced a 48% jump in her ticket demand after posting a video online of herself performing the ice bucket challenge, according to music discovery service Timbre.

Ed Sheeran, following his video, saw traffic rise by 54% for his European tour. The challenge itself involves having a bucket of ice cold water poured over the volunteer’s head, with the aim of raising awareness of neurodegenerative illness ALS.

I suppose at least they got a mention of the disease in there, too.

Timbre - whose 'music discovery' product is actually just a glorified gig guide - don't bother to put any figures on this massive uplift - no indication of if this is about six million suddenly becoming nine million, or two adding an extra one; no indication of how long a time period this uplift covers. Presumably it's just looking at its own stats, and - given that these are tickets which haven't just come onto the market - the numbers of people who happened to be looking at Allen or Sheeran on the off-chance must have been relatively low prior water-splosh; so... is a tiny uptick really worth making a fuss about?