Twitter announced some tweet-worthy news this morning with the confirmation of its standalone music service after rumours have circulated for the past week. Rolled out to a select group of celebrities and influencers last week, Twitter Music is comprised of both a web platform and an iOS app. Now available to the public, the app pulls in music from Rdio, Spotify and iTunes while using data from your Twitter follower graph to deliver music best suited to you. Twitter Music is broken down into four tabs: Suggested, #NowPlaying, Popular and Emerging.
Twitter Music is the creation of We Are Hunted, a startup discreetly acquired by the company just last year. Twitter Music’s “Popular” and “Emerging” options gather information from We Are Hunted’s platform to determine what’s trending and to display up-and-coming artists. This includes musical artists that you follow, as well as artists that the people you follow are following. With the potential to uncover hidden talent, we have a feeling some of our pavement-pounding musician friends will be happy with this news. “Suggested” recommends songs and artists by pulling in Twitter follower data. #NowPlaying plays music in that is tweeted out by people you follow using the #NowPlaying hashtag.
The big question is whether Twitter Music will have the power to pull millions of users away from Pandora, Spotify, Facebook’s music offering, as well as smaller services like Songza. One thing is for sure: Twitter continues to take steps in the direction of becoming a media company, with rumours swirling that Twitter is in talks with Viacom and NBC Universal for potential ad and content deals.
What are your thoughts on Twitter Music?
Hit the App Store or click here to check out Twitter Music online.