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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?"

8 of 45 comments (clear)

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

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

  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 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
  3. Re:so what? by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  4. 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?
  5. 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.

  6. 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.
  7. Can't see it working by Stonent1 · · Score: 3, Funny

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