1. Twitter to Launch Sasha Hudson, 27/03/2013
Music Service Ollie Killick &
David Norris
Background
In January, Twitter launched Vine, a six second (or less) video sharing service. Now it is set to
launch a music service – knowing eight out of ten of the most followed accounts are musicians.
Details
Twitter recently acquired We Are Hunted, a software company whose search algorithms are built to
aggregate popular new music. We Are Hunted’s music discovery service was accessible by web, iOS,
Android and Spotify apps. Twitter is using this software to develop its own standalone music
discovery and streaming service and will leverage its existing relationship with SoundCloud for the
streaming element. The service will be called Twitter Music and will be launched as a standalone iOS
app very soon. When you load up the app for the first time, Twitter Music will suggest that you sign
in using your Twitter account – your experience will then be personalized based on your Twitter
social graph. It’s rumored that there will be four main tabs in the app: ‘Suggested’ will recommend
tracks for you based on artists you follow and artists other users you follow are following. The
hashtag ‘#NowFollowing’ will aggregate tracks tweeted by people you follow when they use it –
meaning you can recommend tracks easily to your social graph. ‘Popular’ will bring in songs that
are trending, and ‘Emerging’ which will bring in tracks from up-and-coming artists. If you want to
learn more about an artist, you’ll be able to click through to a short bio and play other tracks on
their SoundCloud account. You’ll also be able to follow artists on Twitter directly from the app.
Implications
This is a highly competitive market. Facebook recently launched its OpenGraph technology which
enables services like Spotify and SoundCloud to heavily appear in news feeds, and Google has
confirmed that it is looking to introduce a music subscription service of its own. Spotify recently hit
six million Premium subscriptions, and there are many other major global music streaming services
such as Deezer, Napster, rara.com, Music Unlimited and Xbox Music. It is not yet known whether
Twitter will charge subscription fees to use the app, but it has been refining its commercial model
recently, with revenues forecast to increase to $1 Billion by 2014; 58% of this from mobile. Vine
videos have enriched the promoted tweet product – brands like GE and Gap have been using Vines
within promoted tweets. It’s possible that Twitter will encourage the music industry to use Twitter
Music in a similar way to promote new tracks, or it could even look to generate revenue from paid
downloads or commissions on ticket sales.
Summary
This move by Twitter highlights another example of a world where music and media are converging.
Leveraging Twitter functionality and scale with SoundCloud for content should – in theory – make
both media brands stronger and enhance the experience for the end user. The ambition to keep
people in Twitter makes perfect sense and harnessing content (Twitter Cards, Vine and now Twitter
Music) will do that. Twitter Music looks like the focus will be more fun (than serious muso) where
you can easily find a new tune, and for people to dip in and out. The company is looking to
integrate more content into its platform to raise engagement. As a brand this will no doubt open up
sponsorship integration opportunities – Twitter Music Charts, etc. - but also the ability to use
SoundCloud with scale – which for the right brand and brief when combined with this functionality
could be very powerful.
Sources:
http://www.m-magazine.co.uk/news/twitter-to-launch-music-service/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/14/twitter-launch-music-service
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/03/14/twitter-reportedly-set-release-music-streaming-app
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57573859-94/twitter-acquires-we-are-hunted-readies-standalone-music-app/
http://mashable.com/2013/01/28/twitter-videoads-are-here/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/twitter-plans-to-launch-its-own-app-thatll-help-you-discover-new-music/