MUMBAI: Putting all speculations to rest, popular social networking site Twitter has unveiled its music streaming application on the web and iOS devices, as part of its strategy to deepen its multimedia offering to users.
The app is available for iPhone users on the Apple app store, apart from the web. The company is also stated to be launching an android version of the music service in the near future.
The announcement was first made on ABC's ‘Good Morning America’ program. The company launched the service last week exclusively to musicians. Twitter stated that it will continue to add new music services to its app.
The iPhone app, called #music, will recommend and stream songs based on who users follow on Twitter and artists' recommendations. The songs will be streamed through Rdio and Spotify, the subscription-based music services, and iTunes Apple's music store. Users can tap another button that opens iTunes where they can buy the track. Or they can play full songs by signing up for a $10-a-month subscription from Spotify or Rdio.
As per a blog post by the company, the app will be available in US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Twitter's engineers said, “The new service uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists' music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists.”
Reports state that the music app is strikingly more visually appealing than the regular Twitter app. Squares of photos of artists fill the screen and bounce around in response to swipes. The app also starts a turntable spinning with a little picture of album cover art when playing a song.
Users can also search popular music enjoyed by the universe of other app users, and Twitter surfaces what it calls ‘emerging’ trends and artists.
The app comes a week after Twitter announced it had purchased ‘We Are Hunted’, an Australian music streaming and recommendation service.
The new app, launched four months after Twitter unveiled Vine, a stand-alone video-sharing app, is meant to reinforce Twitter's position as a fully functional multimedia hub, particularly in the eyes of the youth.
In its early years, Facebook Inc gained popularity by allowing its service to be integrated with YouTube and music-streaming apps like Spotify. As per reports, Apple, Google Inc and Amazon Inc have all recently held talks with music industry executives about entering the music streaming business.