iTunes reigns king when it comes to music for the past decade.

Billboard magazine reported in September 2012 that Apple’s online store accounts for 64 percent of all music sold in the United States and more than 29 percent of all digital music sold.

But now, Twitter is preparing to jump into the fiercely competitive music industry. On April 18, Twitter released the Twitter #Music application for Apple iOS devices. The app encourages users to log in to Twitter to discover and listen to new music, ABC News reported April 18.

Kacy Caminero, a sophomore public relations and finance major, said she thinks discovering music is very important, but was doubtful of Twitter’s new enterprise. The primary channels for finding new music, she said, are iTunes and Spotify, and are likely to stay that way.

“I don’t think I’d use Twitter to learn about music because it’s a lot harder to read my news stream and keep track of specific artists,” she said.

Spotify integration, which was introduced to Facebook in 2011, gives users the ability to stream millions of artists straight from their desktop, free of charge. This innovation also allows for current songs to be shared on the user’s profile, according to a Sept. 22, 2011, Mashable article.

Twitter #Music features four categories of music that users can choose from: popular, emerging, suggested and #NowPlaying, according the ABC article. The app also provides suggestions for similar artists.

Tapping the “popular” tab pulls up an interface featuring various tiles that display numerical rankings for the most popular song titles on Twitter at the moment. The app tracks activity across Twitter, allowing users to discover what artists or songs are being tweeted the most in the United States. This tabulation occurs in real time, constantly shuffling the hottest singles.

The “emerging artist” category tracks tweets featuring artists who start to receive a flurry of activity on Twitter.

The “suggested” tab suggests new artists based on who users’ favorite artists follow. The “#NowPlaying” tab has a similar function in that it shows in real time your friends’ tweets about the music they are listening to.

“Twitter #Music will play a vital role in the music discovery process,” said Grant Margolin, a junior in the Bandier Program for Music and the Entertainment Industries. “For consumers, it can be used to interact with bands, and it’s great because it’s a centralized platform. It will streamline the experience between fan and artist.”

#Music is an app that mines pertinent data from Twitter and presents it neatly within the app. The music that can be played within the app comes directly from iTunes previews, but a subscription to Spotify Premium or Radio allows access to full-length tracks, according to an April 21 article by The Seattle Times.

Twitter has big plans for the current #Music app, along with its other new projects. Advertising revenue for the company is expected to more than double to $583 million this year. Experts believe many of these aggressive moves are being done in anticipation of the company’s initial public stock offering, which might occur next year, according to The Seattle Times.

Published on April 30, 2013 at 12:49 am

Contact Jared: jmrose03@syr.edu