Twitter has been making a lot of positive pushes to improve their social network lately, with their most recent addition being the new Vine video sharing service. According to CNET, Vine is about to get some company – a new standalone app designed to help users discover and download music. The app will reportedly be called “Twitter Music,” and will provide music suggestions based on who a given user follows on the service.
Twitter acquired the music discovery service We Are Hunted last year and is using its technology to build a standalone music app, CNET has learned.
The app, to be called Twitter Music, could be released on iOS by the end of this month, according to a person familiar with the matter. Twitter Music suggests artists and songs to listen to based on a variety of signals, and is personalized based on which accounts a user follows on Twitter. Songs are streamed to the app via SoundCloud.
The app will also reportedly be able to integrate with SoundCloud to stream recommended songs. The report also shares some alleged details on the design of the app, and exactly how it will work:
Twitter Music uses four main tabs. “Suggested” recommends songs and artists based on a user’s follower graph — artists they are following, and artists that other people they follow are following. #NowPlaying brings in links to songs tweeted by people you follow who tweet using that hashtag. For the past month or so, We Are Hunted employees have been using the #NowPlaying hash tag frequently on Twitter in an apparent test of the forthcoming app.
The app has two more tabs: ‘Popular’ brings in songs trending on We are Hunted, and an ‘Emerging’ tab tracks up-and-coming artists.
Artists and songs are displayed in an elegant grid design. Tapping on the tile for an artist causes the tile to expand, showing a short biography along with links to any music the artist has stored on SoundCloud, or to song previews from the iTunes store. Users then tap a ‘play’ button to start streaming the music. So far, the app does not integrate with Spotify or other streaming services.
One aspect of the app artists are sure to like — users can follow them on Twitter directly from Twitter Music.
The app will become yet another media-related app, which Twitter seems to have really been pushing for lately. Adding to the media sharing already provided through Vine, and Twitter’s new integrated photo sharing and editing service, and it seems Twitter’s focus is shifting from just social networking towards additional multimedia – something which most users will find quite welcome.
Update: Bloomberg confirms that the new Twitter Music app will support music streaming via SoundCloud, and notes that record label executives have only learned about Twitter’s plans for the app today, Thursday, March 14.
The app will stream music from SoundCloud Ltd., a Berlin- based audio-sharing service, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the plan hasn’t been announced. Twitter last year acquired digital-media startup We Are Hunted as part of its push into music, a person said.
Executives at two major record labels first learned of Twitter’s plans today, after CNET reported the development of a music app, according to two people close to the companies. It wasn’t clear whether Twitter would need separate agreements with music labels for a service with SoundCloud.
