As you have probably heard, twitter has launched a new service, Twitter music with an iPhone app for U.S., Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Through the app, users can find tracks that are popular on Twitter, tracks from emerging artists and tracks that are popular with their friends. They can also check out the music of the artists they follow and the artists that those artists follow.
Twitter launched its music service without striking deals with music companies , they used existing deals the labels have in place with subscription music services, choosing to partner with Spotify and Rdio to allow users to listen to full-length tracks.
Some were left wondering what it was all about. But as Wired pointed out – its simple (and therefore a pretty genius move!)
But really, it’s simple: Twitter Music is all about getting you to spend more quality time with Twitter. It’s about everybody’s favorite buzzword: engagement.
Twitter are simply tapping into users behaviour and recognising that users follow musicians and talk and share music a lot on the service, so this is a smart play for them. It also continues to engage musicians and their labels who are likely to invest in advertising on the platform. All in all this is a really interesting move by Twitter and with BBC America partnering with Twitter (for their Doctor Who and Top Gear programmes) the future seems bright for the blue bird.
Conor Byrne
Head of Digital