Standalone Twitter Music App May Launch By The End Of March
by Brent Dirks
March 13, 2013
Twitter is preparing a standalone music app that could be released on iOS by the end of the month, according to CNET.
The app will be named Twitter Music and uses technology from the social networking giant's previously unknown acquisition of We Are Hunted. According to CNET’s source, the app will suggest a personalized list of artists and songs a user should listen to. SoundCloud will then stream songs to the app.
CNET also has a detailed description of how the app works:
Unlike Vine, the video sharing app that Twitter released in January, the music app carries Twitter branding. The app's icon consists of a silver "play" button with the familiar blue Twitter bird looking down on it from the corner. Once it launches for the first time, the app offers a short guided tour. Users with Twitter accounts are invited to sign in so that they can receive personalized music recommendations. It's also possible to use the app without having a Twitter account, which could help attract new users to the service. 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.We Are Hunted is no stranger to developing iOS apps as it has already released the pictured Music Hunter for iPad and SuperSonic for the iPhone. Does a Twitter Music have a chance against powerhouses like Pandora and Spotify?
