

Twitter Music App Goes Live Today - jordn
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/18/twitter-music-app-goes-live/

======
k-mcgrady
Playing with it now and it seems pretty good. The trending chart is obviously
full of the usual suspects (Psy is #1 right now). The emerging chart is
actually quite good. I haven't heard of anyone on it but already heard a few
good songs. The suggested chart (based on artists on you follow which the app
finds automatically when you link your Twitter account) is also quite good.
It's finding me tracks by artists I know but haven't heard in a while and a
few new ones too.

The play interface is a bit clunky. I've already accidentally switched to the
next track and there doesn't seem to be a way to seek so when I went back I
had to start the previous track from the beginning again.

The app makes sharing what you're listening to pretty easy and includes a link
to the track on the music service you've linked your account with (Spotify or
Rdio).

Search is a bit funny. It says 'search for artists' but really just returns a
list of twitter users matching your search term. I could see twitter
introducing some sort of artist account. It can't be that hard to verify an
artists authenticity through checking if they have music on Rdio, Spotify, or
iTunes.

It seems like it could be a good service and is soemthing that will be useful
to me immediately but they do have a few things (mainly the playback interface
and search) to work out.

Edit: The website is now live: <https://music.twitter.com>

~~~
InAnEmergency
Not sure about the app, but on the web interface you can seek inside a track
by clicking around the disc image.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Thanks for the tip, that works in the app too.

------
blocke
Well that now makes the second Twitter product without an Android launch
strategy. The first, Vine, looks like it'll flame out by the time they ever
toss a half broken app across the corporate firewall. Are they running out of
cash or something? Their competition doesn't seem to be having a problem with
supporting more than one platform.

Edit: I'd also like the point out the irony of hitting "Play Full Tracks",
picking Rdio, then immediately being presented with a Facebook logo and login
option but no Twitter SSO. /facepalm

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "Well that now makes the second Twitter product without an Android launch
strategy"

They do have the website which works fine on mobile.

~~~
blocke
That's a piss poor Android strategy.

And as a side note I'm still getting this on Android:

<http://i.imgur.com/Ox0BwML.png>

Hopefully it's just a cache issue.

~~~
creativityhurts
I'm getting that on iPad as well. I guess the site is not ready.

------
kmfrk
... in _some_ countries.

    
    
        Right now, the service is available in the US, Canada,
        the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Over time, we
        will bring the service to Android as well as to more
        countries.
    

[http://blog.twitter.com/2013/04/now-playing-twitter-
music.ht...](http://blog.twitter.com/2013/04/now-playing-twitter-music.html)

~~~
ra
Woohoo! For once Australia and New Zealand aren't 3 years later. Well done
Twitter (and We are Hunted).

~~~
varikin
I wonder if it is because Twitter Music is from buying We Are Hunted which, if
I recall correctly, was an company from Australia.

------
pseut
I'm disappointed by the description (but I never used wearehunted; if I had I
probably wouldn't be surprised). I was really hoping for an easy way to
_share_ individual songs over twitter (in a way that doesn't require me or the
people that might listen to the songs to have external accounts). Right now I
use embedded youtube videos which has gaps in coverage, quality, etc....
Twitter might have the resources and influence to pull something like that
off.

The flip side being that if it's easy for people to share songs, and there's
an easy way to play a stream of songs w/in twitter, then you get "discovery"
from curated playlists.

~~~
dave1010uk
I think <http://toma.hk/> is the closest to that right now. It would be great
to link up with something like <http://musicbrainz.org/>

------
JimmaDaRustla
A lot more details on theverge.com:
[http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/18/4238138/twitter-unveils-
ne...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/18/4238138/twitter-unveils-new-music-
service)

The service WILL launch today - iOS app and website. It will work with
Spotify, Rdio and iTunes.

I hope at least one of two things happen - they somehow support Xbox Music
(ZunePass), but I doubt that will happen since it isn't web based and probably
has no interface...OR Rdio gets more music.

------
plg
Q: do most people really have the data plans on their mobile devices to be
able to listen to music all day? I'm in Canada and we certainly do not.

~~~
pseut
Yes: I have wireless in my office and house (and no data plan for my iphone).

~~~
creativityhurts
So what's the point in listening to music in your iPhone at home?

~~~
pseut
I plug it into my radio speaker through the aux in cable in my living room.

------
codeulike
Bands now have a strong reason to get very spammy on twitter. Hope it doesn't
go the way of MySpace, which ended up being LinkedIn for people who want to
promote their band. (there was a lot of other things wrong with MySpace, but
when it just became a bunch of bands spamming each other, anyone who wasn't a
band had little reason to be there anymore)

------
dmsimpkins
Can you play full songs from Spotify on the app with a standard Spotify
account? Since the Spotify app only allows full catalog access on mobile
devices with a premium subscription, it seems strange that they would allow
the Twitter Music app to do this.

------
ishansharma
Why all the hype about Twitter Music app? I just don't get it. Can someone
please explain?

It seems to me like Google Drive all over again, nothing new to see but since
its a big company launching something, hype!

~~~
k-mcgrady
Have you played with it? Until today all we really new was 'Twitter is
launching a music app/service'.

------
mkr-hn
It won't let me connect my Spotify account. I'm going to assume it's from so
many people trying to do the same thing. Looks interesting from what little I
can do with it without the connection.

------
janlukacs
still not exactly sure what it does. it pulls music from other services based
on trending stuff on twitter? who would want that? so much hype for nothing...

------
ved_a
Not live. Techcruch did not get paid properly I guess

------
buzzkillr2
Not live for me, what does everyone else find?

~~~
jordn
Yeah I think Twitter originally announced only that it would be going live
_today_ ([http://gma.yahoo.com/twitter-music-app-launches-for-
iphone-a...](http://gma.yahoo.com/twitter-music-app-launches-for-iphone-and-
web-listen-and-discover-trending-music--120539705.html)) and Techcrunch has
paraphrased that poorly.

 _Edit: added 'Today' to title to clarify._

------
workbench
Crappiest launch ever?

Public facing landing page for about a week that asks you to sign in then just
does nothing, not even an error?

Can't even be arsed looking at it now after that mess.

~~~
k-mcgrady
From the blog post:

"You can download Twitter #music from the App Store today, or enjoy the web
version, which will be rolling out over the next few hours:
music.twitter.com."

So the web component will be rolling out later today. The app is available and
working.

Edit: It's now working for me <https://music.twitter.com>

------
raulonkar
Amazing app....i am lovin it

