After almost a week of teasing, Twitter has
finally lifted the curtains on its music service which is now available for iOS
and on the web.
As a whole the music app seems to resemble
existing music recommendation services such as Last.fm and Pandora, but with
Twitter’s platform integrated into the service. Basically, Twitter Music is a
music recommendation engine that is based on bands and artists that users
follow.
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| Photo Courtesy of TechRadar.com |
Recommendations made by the app can be
sampled either as a 30-second preview using iTunes or if the user has a Spotify
or Rdio account, the user can listen to the full track after signing in. The
app will also be able to track what your friends are listening to and display
recommendations by bands or artists a user follows.
In case a user isn’t following any bands or
music artist, a Popular tab and an Emerging tab provides recommendations
based on Twitter’s database. The Popular tab recommends music based from the
general public data of top trending artists while the Emerging tab recommends
music from up-and-coming artists.
Obviously, recommendations made by Twitter
music are very dependent on the bands and artists that a user follows which can
either make or break the app depending on the user. If a user is already has an
account on Spotify or Rdio, the Twitter music app is a good way to make the
experience of finding new music worthwhile. Otherwise, for those who are just
using the app for the first time, recommendations as well as the experience is
very limited.
Having said this, it’s evident that the
clear winners here are Spotify and Rdio as the app finds a way to direct
traffic and customers to these resources. Twitter can also benefit from this
setup as the company can use the app to leverage its revenue by targeting
specific music labels in placing ads on the service to promote a particular
artist or band.
What are your thoughts about Twitter Music?
Please do tell us by leaving a comment below.
