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Twitter Adding Music Recommendation

Posted by Soulskill on from the #getoffmylawn dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports that Twitter will soon launch a new music recommendation system for users of its service. The company teased the new feature and directed queries to announcement that We Are Hunted, a company focused on music recommendation through social media, would be shutting down and joining the Twitter team. 'Recommendations based on social media interactions have become common throughout digital media for things like restaurants and shopping. Many online music services offer these features as well. Spotify, for example, can broadcast its users' playlists through Facebook. Twitter's advantage, in addition to its size, may lie in the devotion of its customers. "Music is one of the most tweeted topics," said Ted Cohen, a former label executive who is now a consultant to digital music companies. "Discovery is critical to the growth of music, and the new gatekeeper is recommendations from trusted sources."' Oddly, those 'trusted sources' seem to be celebrities with Twitter accounts at the moment, as the system is currently invite-only and restricted to 'influencers.'"

22 comments

  1. Like im gonna trust twitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    when over half their "users" are bots

    21st century payola
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22104058

    1. Re:Like im gonna trust twitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bots would be nice compared to the Beliebers.

      Here's my prediction: all music recommendations will be for the tween demographic.

  2. I recommend you don't fool with Medusa. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Medusa would turn your ass to stone and use your statue for archery practice.

  3. Audioscrobbler by Black+LED · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have Audioscrobbler/Last.fm for that and it does a pretty good job of recommending new (to me) music that I actually do like.

  4. Don't care by pauljlucas · · Score: 1

    As long as I don't get any more "Sponsored tweets" (or anything else I didn't explicitly ask for), I don't care.

    --
    If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
  5. Re:Music is dead by postbigbang · · Score: 1

    And therein lies the rub. I like music recommendations from people, but until there's a business model for it, I don't think a relationship with Spotify, etc., is going to make it profitable for anyone. And if I get sponsored tweets from musical tastes that I don't care for, it devalues Twitter's effectiveness, limited as it is, in my life-- and others, I'll bet.

    I understand the need for revenues, but I don't think this one makes sufficient money that overcomes the potential annoyance factor. We'll see.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  6. Too many features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It really grinds my gears that each cloud service nowadays is trying to be all things to all people. I liked the world of a couple of years ago where these services interconnected nicely. The sort of system which android is backed by.

    Currently I get my music recommendations by friends posting youtube / spotify links of facebook or twitter. Now, spotify has its own timeline and its own friends list which inexplicably links to my facebook. Soon, twitter will have music recommendations where previously the serivce supported it in a totally ad hoc manner.

    Arrgghhh

  7. Tell me what to listen to, please! by Nyder · · Score: 1

    I have a problem, I don't hear that much new music. I don't listen to the radio, I don't listen to internet radio stations, and I don't have any friends. So hearing that twitter is going to have new music suggestions from celebrities, I couldn't be happier! If there is anyone who knows what I will like, it's the rich, super popular celebrities.

    I can't wait, Ashely Tisdale recommends her new album. The Black Eyed Peas recommends their new album! Shit, the Rolling Stones recommends their new album!!!!!

    No wonder I don't use twitter.

    --
    Be seeing you...
    1. Re:Tell me what to listen to, please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does something about a person being rich and celebrated make them so much different from you as to their taste in music? Really? Do you have the much hatred for everyone who isn't a common pauper that you can't even see those who are very successful as people too? It sounds like you got some deep rooted personal problems.

      For, though I speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I
      am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the
      element shows to him as it doth to me; all his
      senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies
      laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and
      though his affections are higher mounted than ours,
      yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like
      wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we
      do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish
      -William Shakespeare (Henry V, Act IV, Scene I)

    2. Re:Tell me what to listen to, please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the point is that popular opinion weights the celebrities opinions and projects it onto everyone else as 'the thing to be/do/see/hear'.

    3. Re:Tell me what to listen to, please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Does something about a person being rich and celebrated make them so much different from you as to their taste in music?"

      Yes. The fact that they are being biased by the industry that employs them to push stuff that I don't care about.

      I would gladly listen to recommendations from the artists whose works I do admire but, since it's not a mainstream genre, none of them is rich or celebrated.

      Sure, it's just a correlation and not a causation, but it's still a correlation.

    4. Re:Tell me what to listen to, please! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Does something about a person being rich and celebrated make them so much different from you as to their taste in music? Really?

      Yes, if they're rich because they're in the music business, definitely. If some musician/artist/singer/whatever-they-call-themselves-these-days-even-though-they-have-zero-talent "tweets" about how great their music is, why should I care? What else are they going to say, "I released a new album today, but it's really quite mediocre and I think you'd be happier buying so-and-so's new album"? Are you one of those morons who listens to rich people when those rich people tell you to buy their stuff, thus making them even richer? That sounds exactly like Sarah Palin's hordes of idiot fans, all fawning over her because she's "successful", and then going and buying her crappy books, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    5. Re:Tell me what to listen to, please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey man listen to my music. unrecommented, mediocre, chaotic, free wave download. who knows... you make like it.

      http://soundcloud.com/milkyway-outcast

      would be interesting to create a different kind of "gatekeeping"

      are there any interesting approaches out there?

    6. Re:Tell me what to listen to, please! by antdude · · Score: 1

      Same here. I have about 1,832 FAVORITE songs I listen to. I think I have enough. :) However, I am looking for new trance music videos and tunes though (free)! Those are hard to find.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  8. The way I read this: by denzacar · · Score: 1

    Twitter to become even more annoying and spammy.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  9. Twitter Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you know a quarter of the users on Twitter are FUCKING FAGGOTS!!! Twitter could easily clean themselves up if they ban the FUCKING FAGGOTS! Fix the USA today by firing or banning FUCKING FAGGOTS!

    In addition, some FUCKING FAGGOT makes me use a god damn proxy to post how to clean up America!

  10. WeAreStunted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To those who used and liked We are Hunted, It's kinda lame how they just shut down the site a couple months with no explanation and or head's up. They should have at least reached out to long time users of the site to get an invite so they didn't feel left out of the move. Just left a bad taste in my ear is all.

    1. Re:WeAreStunted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, it seems to be a taste of things to come. Fortunately, there are tons of other music recommendation sites and services.

  11. Twitter recommends: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Twitter thinks you'd like to hear: *content removed due to DMCA complaint* "

    If it's popular at all, the industry will probably think it deserves money for twitter referencing songs they own.

  12. "Trusted sources" anathema to Twitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The whole point and novelty of tweeting is that it democratizes opinion, so adding "trusted sources" for music recommendation really undermines Twitter's main strength.

    On top of that, nothing is less objective than music appreciation, so the idea of music recommendations from "trusted sources" is quite ludicrous. That bad old model was left behind a decade ago. All new recommendation services are being personalized to each user's musical tastes.

    In fact, "trusted sources" is probably a thinly veiled intention to receive money from the Big Music labels for "product placement". No thanks.

  13. Ping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    isn't this the great success by Apple that was Ping?