If you want to use the Twitter #music app you need to have a Spotify or Rdio. Otherwise you are just listening to iTunes clips of the songs. Really if you do not have a Spoitfy account, you need to get one ASAP. I am a huge fan of Spoitfy, and it is probably the death of services like iTunes, but I digress.
So once you have your Spoitfy or Rdio account linked you can really enjoy the Twitter #music app. The app is beautifully made and easy to navigate. There are 4 charts: Popular, Emerging, Suggested and Who you follow. Each one is a college of album/artist photos. Popular is basically iTunes top 20 list. Emerging is pulled from bands being talked about all over Twitter. Who You Follow pulls in the song that people you follow are tweeting about, problem #1. The Suggested Chart is where we find our 2nd problem because Recommendations are based off of artist you follow. I follow lots of “Artist” that are more or less celebrities and I don’t really care about their music or their taste in music…
Which brings us to my first 2 big improvement for Twitter #music, My own @bluemountainbel profile. This one thing can kill 2 birds with one stone.
Problem #1 – The #NowPlaying Chart
As a blogger who blogs about music, Spotify gives me a way for fans to follow me. Twitter gives fans a way to follow me. Twitter #music should give fans a way to follow just my #nowplaying tweets. On the #nowplaying page, I can click on a track and see who tweeted it. But the entire point of music discover via people you follow is the fact that you actually like that persons music taste. Right now my feed shows a tweet from Rachel Zoe (@RachelZoe), she is listing to the Rolling Stones. I follow Rachel Zoe for her style not really her music, though I do love the Stones. I follow the blogger Ashley of The Yuppy Hustle @YuppieHustle on Twitter because I love her blog and she has great taste in music. I want to see what she is tweeting and listing to. When I find @yuppiehustle on #music, instead of telling me what songs she is tweeting I get a list of everyone she is following. I don’t actually care who she is following, she could follow 100s of artist and some she isn’t really into. Hence, the need for a sharable profile that shows who I am tweeting about with the hashtag #nowplaying. Part of the reason I follow someone on Twitter is because I believe he or she has something interesting to say. But that doesn’t mean I will necessarily like their musical taste. Spotify realized this so that while a stream of what all your friends are listening too. You also have the abilty to “follow” the few friends you think have great taste in music. Twitter #music is so close, seeing a stream of everyone I am following #nowplaying tweets is nice. But then I have to personal dig to find the people I think have great music taste, tweets. Also you can’t read the tweet! What if they said “This song blows” it would be nice to read the tweet and listen to the song at the same time.
Problem # 2 – The Suggested Chart
Once we get the Personal profile showing just my tweets about music, I could potentially “star” or “like” that persons music taste, weeding out the people I follow that (I think) don’t have great music taste. The Suggestion Chart could then better discern between who I follow for tweets and and who I follow for music. Example: I follow the Rolling Stones Magazine (@RollingStone), I disagree with a lot of their music taste, Relix (@RelixMag) on the other hand is pretty spot on with my taste. I want to know what songs Relix is tweeting and not Rolling Stones. But I still want to follow Rolling Stones and Relix for their non #nowplaying tweets too. I shouldn’t have to compromise to get better music recommendations.
Problem # 3 – Finding A Song Later
As I worked my way through the emerging playlist, I found the third flaw of this app. When you hear a song you like, and you want to remember the name and artist. You are presented with a two choices…
1. Follow the artist! Which is awesome cause I do want to follow them on Twitter. But what am I supposed to do with that? After listening to track, I follow the artist then, flip over to Spotify, search for the band and star the track. I don’t really want to do this after every song I like. Nor, do I want to listen to 10 songs, follow 3 artist, then later find the artist in my Twitter, by now I have already forgotten their names, flip back to Spotify and search for them. Sure it’s not that bad, but not all artist Twitter handles reflect their real band name as Tom Hawking points out in the Flavorwire article. Making it slightly more difficult to find them later.
2. I can do the old fashion thing and write it down…
What makes Spotify so awesome is that you get all your local music + music discovery without having to switch between programs. I can listen to the radio or app like Tunigo, star a song I like and add it to a playlist with just a click and a drag. If we are going to connect our Twitter to Spotify we should at least be able to Star a song. Or any song we listen to is added to a “Twitter” Playlist on Spotify. Making it easier to enjoy the new music later.
So with a few simple improvements Twitter Music could be a great source for music discovery. Not only for artist but for fans too.
Really the ability to tweet about emerging artist is an incredible opportunity for up and coming bands. While getting my daily fix of tech news I read an article on Tech Crunch, about emerging artist on Twitter #music. This article inspired me to test out the emerging chart. After listening to a few songs I tweeted about The Frances Cone Band @francesconeband. Then it hits me, the emerging artist I was just reading about is Frances Cone and she just favorite my tweet! Twitter just connected us in really amazing way.
@BlueMountainBel @TechCrunch right?! insanity!!
— Frances Cone (@Frances_Cone) April 23, 2013
All in all, I think Twitter #music is great but it could be awesome. Will I use is over Spotify, no, but I will use it to find new music. Maybe a Spotify native #music app is in the mix…
Also a badge to put on my website saying “look at my awesome music tweets” would be fabulous.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Twitter #music – comment or tweet me @bluemountainbel
