Finally after a week filled with rumors, micro-blogging website Twitter unveiled the standalone #music service today. It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. You can also tweet songs right from the app.
The songs on Twitter #music currently come from three sources: iTunes, Spotify or Rdio. By default, you will hear previews from iTunes when exploring music in the app. Subscribers to Rdio and Spotify can log in to their accounts to enjoy full tracks that are available in those respective catalogs. Twitter has plans to explore and add other music service providers very soon.
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’re scrolling through a chart and you want to learn more about a band, you can tap their avatar to see their top song – follow them right from the chart, or tap their Twitter username to go to their profile.
If you want to listen to music from the artists, one of your friend 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 and hit the play button to begin listening, or press play on the player to listen to all the artists. As you discover new songs that you want to share with your followers on Twitter, simply tap the spinning disc in the lower left corner. This opens the player, and you can tweet from there using the Tweet icon in the top right corner.
The web version is now live for everyone but currently the #music app is only available for iPhone and you can download it from the App Store for free. According to Twitter the Android version will be launched very soon.
