Twitter Introduces Charts By Genre And Popularity For Its #Music Service; Everyone in a band wants to know how well they stack up against others. In fact, some artists didn’t see the service coming at all, and were pleased with all of the new attention they were getting

Twitter Introduces Charts By Genre And Popularity For Its #Music Service

DREW OLANOFF

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013

We’ve confirmed with Twitter that it has rolled out a new part of its #Music service for the web, charts that we were accustomed to from the company We Are Hunted, that it acquired and now powers the service. The charts are broken up into a few areas: the familiar genre breakdown, as well as some categories like “Superstars” and “Unearthed” that appear to be built based on current Twitter trends and trajectory of artist mentions. This is leveraging all of the data that Twitter is collecting from tweets that include links to tracks from popular and emerging artists.

As you click on each category, the tiles on the page swap out quickly, letting you surf around to find new artists and songs. The categorization was a necessity to be able to find hidden gems, as the original breakdown of Popular and Emerging changed so rapidly:

These are the types of charts that will get artists themselves more engaged on Twitter, as well as catch the attention of record labels who want to know what people are saying about the musicians that they’ve signed. Everyone in a band wants to know how well they stack up against others. In fact, some artists didn’t see the service coming at all, and were pleased with all of the new attention they were getting.

The service, which is still finding its footing, is still in the mode of getting musicians to participate by getting on Twitter and engaging with their fans. That engagement gives them a better shot of shooting up the charts and being found. With the addition of charts, which music listeners are also familiar with, people will be able to go deeper in finding songs that fit the genre that they like the most. Rather than waiting for Twitter to pair you with matches that it’s taking a guess on, the power is now in your hands.

If you’re an Rdio or Spotify user, then the entire #Music experience is seamless, but if you’re only buying music from iTunes, you’re not getting to hear full tracks within the app. It’s going to take a while for #Music to grip, as are a lot of Twitter’s “discovery tools.” As the company onboards more people who aren’t interested in tweeting, just browsing, they will benefit from sites like #Music being broken out. For those who are actively tweeting, it’s kind of neat to imagine that your support through tweets could shoot a band or artist up the “charts.”

These charts aren’t available for the Twitter #Music iOS app but are available to everyone on the web today.

Twitter Reportedly Building Standalone iOS Music App Based On Recent Acquisition, As It Did With Vine For Video

DARRELL ETHERINGTON

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Twitter is reportedly planning to release a standalone music app on iOS, possibly later this month, according to a new report from CNET. CNET has learned that Twitter acquired music discovery service We Are Hunted, and is using its tech to build the app, similar to the approach it took with Vine earlier this year. The difference here would be that Twitter’s music app would carry its own branding, according to CNET’s sources.

The app will be called Twitter Music, and will  suggest artists and songs based on information gathered about the user, thanks to personalization derived from what accounts people follow on Twitter. The music itself will be stored on and delivered to a user via SoundCloud integration, and it clearly sounds like a music discovery play a la Discovr, or indeed, We Are Hunted’s own approach pre-acquisition.

As CNET points out, it’s a nice fit since Twitter has been hugely successful in attracting music industry stars, who themselves draw hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. The app works both with and without signing in with your Twitter credentials, too, so it really is a standalone product. According to CNET, it contains a “Suggested” tab for recommending songs and artists, based on artists they already follow, as well as a #NowPlaying hashtag and section that offers up direct access to tracks being shared directly by those you follow on Twitter. There are also “Popular” and “Emerging” tabs that offer general suggestions culled from the overall user community instead of just an individual’s account and follows.

Here’s what using the #NowPlaying feature looks like in the wild, thanks to a tweet by We Are Hunted co-founder Stephen Phillips from February

Initially, Twitter Music will draw content artists put up themselves for streaming on SoundCloud, or else redirect users to iTunes where they can hear the track previews Apple includes in that service. It doesn’t integrate with any full streaming companies like Spotify, CNET says, which is likely actually a selling point for Apple, who will no doubt be a vocal launch partner whenever this does make its way to public release.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for additional comment, and will update with any response we receive.