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Twitter Launches the World's Umpteenth Online Music Site

Posted by timothy on from the re-dis-un-double-secret-intermediation dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Twitter is plunging into the online music game. Twitter Music (or "Twitter #music," in the company's own rendering) uses Twitter activity such as Tweets and engagement "to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists," according to an April 18 posting on Twitter's official blog. Songs on the app derive from three sources: iTunes, Spotify, or Rdio. And yes, Twitter is big, but its victory is by no means assured: other IT giants have entered the same market only to watch highly-publicized projects wither away, doomed by some combination of audience apathy and implementation issues. Take Apple's Ping, for example: launched in September 2010 as part of an iTunes update, the ambitious social-networking and music-recommendation engine immediately ran into a number of problems, including a lack of Facebook integration (despite Steve Jobs' assurances to the contrary) and widespread reports of spam and fake accounts. Can Twitter's effort stand out, or will it just be lost in all the noise?"

45 comments

  1. Twitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So they will play the first 140 bytes of the song ?

    1. Re:Twitter by stewsters · · Score: 1

      We will need to use bytebeats to get a song in that limit.

    2. Re:Twitter by ackthpt · · Score: 1

      So they will play the first 140 bytes of the song ?

      You'll all sing like the birdies sing, Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet!

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    3. Re:Twitter by rwise2112 · · Score: 1

      So they will play the first 140 bytes of the song ?

      No, they'll choose a bit rate to make all the songs 140 bytes. It'll be fine!

      --

      "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
    4. Re:Twitter by antdude · · Score: 1

      I wonder how that will sound. Nothing? Heh.

      Even MIDI files aren't that tiny.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    5. Re:Twitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering what the demoscene people can fit into 1 KB (see example), 140 bytes could be used to produce quite complex music.

    6. Re:Twitter by GrumpySteen · · Score: 1

      Oh yes. Let's have Twitter start distributing 140 byte executables. What could possibly go wrong?

  2. That word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I do not think it is a word. Perhaps you should try "umpteenth". Note the "m".

    1. Re:That word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They're, their, there, grammar Nazi. It'll be ok.

    2. Re:That word by Antipater · · Score: 1

      The editors ran out of characters for the story title.

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    3. Re:That word by ackthpt · · Score: 3

      As a mathematician and programmer I am personnally offended it isn't (n-1)th

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    4. Re:That word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a mathematician and programmer I personally recommend (n+1)th because n -> n+1 is defined on the natural numbers, but n -> n-1 isn't

    5. Re:That word by chewy_fruit_loop · · Score: 1

      ...think you mean spelling nazi

    6. Re:That word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_noun#Capitalization_and_proper_names

  3. This is bound to fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I hear the songs can only be 140 seconds long.

    1. Re:This is bound to fail by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Funny

      Isn't that about the length of a normal pop song anyway?

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    2. Re:This is bound to fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes but now they won't be able to repeat those same 140 over and over and call it a song, OMG its the death of pop music....actually i'm ok with this.

    3. Re:This is bound to fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From my lawn it sounds like 140dB too.

  4. so what? by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 0

    why look another twitter feature I will never use

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    1. Re:so what? by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Funny

      Because nobody should ever do anything if you, personally, won't use it

    2. Re:so what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Pretty much.

    3. Re:so what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      arnold arnold arnold rimmer
      without him life would be much dimmer

    4. Re:so what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Frankly, I'm more concerned about the fact that they're devoting resources to branching out further when their original focus is in need of work.

      They crippled third-party clients with the API restrictions, and have since come out with Vine and #Music. Meanwhile, DMs are still unreliable, you can't filter anything beyond blocking users or turning off their retweets, follow request responses don't work reliably, @'ing now pulls up a universal search instead of putting your followers/followees at the top of the list, and a myriad of other things they seem to be neglecting in favor of changing the mobile UI appearance.

      Something tells me this outfit isn't being managed very well.

  5. "Can Twitter's effort stand out, or ...?" by ADanFromCanada · · Score: 1

    Personally, I've already forgotten about whatever it is I'm commenting on....

  6. MySpace? by netsentry · · Score: 2
    Witness the devolving into indie bands patting each other's backs. Anybody notice the directional path being eerily similar to what happened to MySpace?

    Incidentally, if I see someone post that they like a song on (pick your social network) I ignore it. Can't remember the last time I actually clicked one. Maybe that's just me.

    1. Re:MySpace? by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      There are people whose opinion of music that I trust to at least not waste my time, and I'm always looking for something new. Still, I'd have to agree that signal to noise ratio on something like Twitter is likely to be something of a problem.

    2. Re:MySpace? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if I see someone post that they like a song on (pick your social network) I ignore it.

      That would depend entirely on what you are using the social network for. The only group I am active in is focused on music.

      If I was on Facebook with my parents I would ignore everything too.

  7. Sigh ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Hey Tiothy you illiterate idiot, it's "umpteenth".

    What qualifies you to be an editor again? Because it aint your prowess with the English language.

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

      Damn you Tiothy!

    2. Re:Sigh ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He left out an m, seems entirely reasonable to return the favor.

      Tiothy is a butt uncher.

  8. Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    Take Apple's Ping, for example: launched in September 2010 as part of an iTunes update, the ambitious social-networking and music-recommendation engine immediately ran into a number of problems, including a lack of Facebook integration

    Is lack of Facebook integration really a problem?

    Admittedly, I see no value in Apple's Ping or most forms of social networking, so I'm clearly too old and grumpy, and therefore not their target market. But I can't see wanting to tell Facebook such information about myself.

    To me, lack of Facebook integration is a good thing. (And, yes, I'm aware of the fact that for lots of people apparently it's the most awesome thing ever)

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Hmmm ... by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 1

      well I am not on your lawn

    2. Re:Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      well I am not on your lawn

      Hey, you can do anything you want on your lawn. You can even come over to my lawn and tell me how awesome your lawn is.

      But I'm not going to run out and buy pink flamingos and lawn jockeys because you think they're awesome. ;-)

      I don't get it, but that doesn't mean I care about your choice to do it. I'm obviously not going to deny that loads of people use Facebook and like it, because that would be silly.

      But since every site now links to Facebook, I'm betting they get to know pretty much everything you do on the web since it reports back to the mother ship. I don't have any trust in Zukerfuck, so I wouldn't provide him with any of this stuff. What you choose to do is entirely up to you.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Hmmm ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "But since every site now links to Facebook, I'm betting they get to know pretty much everything you do on the web since it reports back to the mother ship. I don't have any trust in Zukerfuck, so I wouldn't provide him with any of this stuff. What you choose to do is entirely up to you."

      I feel exactly the same way about Itunes.

    4. Re:Hmmm ... by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      Given that it's a social network, its interrelationships (or lack thereof) with existing social networks were an issue. Now, as someone who doesn't use social networks, you can argue that it doesn't apply to you, but you can hardly say that it's a positive, any more than creating inedible cheese is a perk for the lactose intolerant.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  9. Remember Myspace? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That started out as a music sharing site. Then it turned into a horrible soap box for conceited and wrongfully self-entitled twats to showcase their lack of common sense understanding of what it truly means to be "social". But yes, this twitter service will be great, because music and self taken photos and 140 character sentences go hand in hand.

  10. Crap by Oyjord · · Score: 1

    I can't remember the last time I've seen such a vast collection of shitty music all in one space.

  11. Can't see it working by Stonent1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nobody wants to listen to songs 160 bytes at a time.

  12. Oh great... by yabos · · Score: 1

    It'll just be all justin dweeber crap.

    It seems like they're just acting like an affiliate that recommends music based on tweets?

  13. App.Net by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    Though I hate to have yet another duck nibbling my wee budget to death, an $30-some annual ad-free App.Net is starting to look appealing. Twitter still does have some utility, but it's becoming an unjustifiable time-suck; and wading through more and more ads and 'promoted' bullshit is hastening the day of departure.

    1. Re:App.Net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are free invites to app.net that you can find on the net (twitter comes to mind, most invites are posted on twitter).

      The limit is that you can't follow more than 40 people (or something) but it's not that bad since you can try it and see if you like it. I have a free account and I like it so far.

      More info: http://support.app.net/customer/portal/articles/863836-app-net-invites-what-are-they-and-how-do-they-work-

      Good luck on finding an invite!

  14. From Michael Breon_Austin by Michael_Breon_Austin · · Score: 1

    The Twitter #music looks like a cool concept and might gain enough traction to become pretty big. I still haven't tested ease of use, but releasing something to celebrities prior to the general public will always get people talking.