{"id":39614,"date":"2013-04-19T12:34:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T10:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=39614"},"modified":"2025-07-02T01:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:30:11","slug":"hands-on-with-twitter-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/hands-on-with-twitter-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands on with Twitter #Music: pop or pointless?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Twitter<\/a>I\u2019ve been a fan of music discovery services such as Spotify<\/a> and Pandora<\/a> for years. When news hit<\/a> that Twitter<\/a> was starting its own music service I was skeptical. Twitter bought We Are Hunted a year ago with plans to use its technology to tag tracks directly into tweets. Further rumors pointed<\/a> to integration with established services such as iTunes<\/a>, Rdio<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Vevo<\/a>, Soundcloud<\/a>, and YouTube<\/a> (the last three are not yet available). This sounded ambitious, but also very cluttered and invasive.<\/p>\n

What drew me to Pandora was anonymity: I could find music on my own without pestering friends or broadcasting to the world. Spotify defaults to socially sharing music, but there are plenty of options for privacy<\/a>. In contrast, the newly released<\/a> Twitter #Music<\/a> requires following many artists and constantly tweeting about music. In the end this will just fill your feed with endless banter. Worse yet, outside of mainstream pop music it\u2019s very difficult to find just what you\u2019re looking for. I wouldn\u2019t use it as either an iOS app or web service.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Follow what\u2019s trending<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Twitter<\/p>\n

Upon opening Twitter #Music I was presented with a large panel of thumbnail icons. Each icon displays an artist along with their Twitter handle. Clicking this icon plays a single track from the artist. By default this is a 60 second clip from iTunes, but you can connect a premium Rdio or Spotify account to listen to the whole song. The default category of artists is \u201cPopular\u201d, the top trending musicians that everyone is tweeting about. You can also switch to other selections such as \u201cEmerging\u201d for indie bands mentioned on Twitter, \u201cSuggested\u201d artists based on other artists you follow, and \u201c#NowPlaying\u201d which are tracks tweeted by those you follow. You can also search for artists, but you must follow them before you can listen to their track.<\/p>\n

\"Search<\/p>\n

My biggest gripe is that Twitter #Music is geared towards the \u201cPopular\u201d and \u201cEmerging\u201d filters, which might be fine if you only want to listen to what\u2019s mainstream and rising in the indie scene. However, a draw of music services is discovering new and interesting tracks you might not have known about. The \u201cSuggested\u201d filter only provides recommendations based on the artists you already follow. This can mean a near empty list if you don\u2019t follow many musicians. Alternately, you could follow many artists but you\u2019ll now have to read their ranting on your Twitter Feed. The \u201c#NowPlaying\u201d filter is also not very focused. It displays the songs people you follow have tweeted about, which in many cases won\u2019t be your musical taste.<\/p>\n

Broadcasting fluff<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Have
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to find and send tracks on Twitter #Music I had to follow many bands I never heard of and tweeted from the button on the player interface. This ultimately spammed my Twitter feed and any other apps connected to it (Facebook, Linkedin). This is intrusive and probably resulted in a loss of a few followers. Twitter #Music is still at its root a social media tool with music discovery crudely tacked on. I\u2019d like a little bit of silence and privacy when it comes to streaming music. If I want to find tracks related to artists I like I\u2019ll stick with Pandora, if I want to build my own library of songs I\u2019ll use Spotify. At the moment Twitter #Music has no place in my music collection.<\/p>\n

What Twitter #Music needs<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Twitter
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel there are improvements that Twitter #Music could add to make its service more compatible with less social users and still remain competitive. These could work on both the web service and iOS version.<\/p>\n