Twitter confirms music-sharing app
Twitter has topped a week of speculation by formally unveiling its music service that aims to help users discover emerging and popular artists, using activity on the social network.
The Twitter #music app detects and promotes the most popular tracks on the social network as well as emerging artists and also showcases artists’ music-related activity, such as which tracks they listen to.
Users can also scroll through specific artists’ back catalogues by by tapping their avatar, looking at their top tracks and go directly through to their Twitter profile.
Twitter #music users can also share their favourite tracks from within the app and monitor charts of the most popular tracks.
The service is initially available online plus an iOS app and currently sources tracks from three sources; iTunes, Spotify and Rdio – others will be added in future, according to Twitter. Users can play previews from iTunes when exploring music in the app, plus online radio service Rdio and Spotify subscribers can also integrate their accounts with their Twitter feeds.
Stephen Phillips, founder of We Are Hunted, a music-sharing start-up purchased by Twitter earlier this week, says: “If you’re interested in the songs that have been tweeted by the artists and people you follow on Twitter, you can navigate to #NowPlaying to view and listen to those songs.
“Or if you want to listen to music from the artists Wiz Khalifa follows, you can search for his name using the search icon in the top right corner. Then tap one of the artists you’re interested in.”
The announcement comes as Twitter hosts a London-based event today called Twitter for Brands geared towards specifically demonstrating how brands can use the social network to reach their audiences.
Speaking at today’s Twitter4Brands event Tony Wang, managing director of Twitter UK, claimed music “is the heart of Twitter”.
He says: “We’ve launched a very powerful music discovery service built on the simplicity of Twitter but using the power of the discovery engine it has.
“It’s way too early in this space to says there’s a right or wrong way [to innovate]. The question is do you want to do it early or do you want to do it late. The pace of innovation is something we are very excited about within Twitter and among our users and partners.”
Are you interested in hearing more about how to make Twitter work for your brand? The digital company’s director for the UK Bruce Daisley will be speaking about it at this year’s Marketing Week Live. Click here to find out more details.
