Music has been the lifeblood of many social media services, but it appears that Twitter will not be one of them. Social media music sites have prospered, with CNET reporting that Spotify recently topped $500 million in revenue. At the same time, however, Twitter has decided to fold its hand in the music business and get out of a hashtag-based sound promotion service. What proved to be the sour note in this social media foray?
In The Beginning
Launched in April of 2013, the Twitter #music platform hoped to connect users to music through hashtag searches. With this app in hand, Twitter allowed users to track Tweets from artists as well as search for popular tracks with hashtag searches of label, record, song, or lyrics. Stating that half of all Twitter users follow at least one musician, Twitter launched the mobile app with the hopes of gaining ground on their social media music competitors like SoundCloud. The app allowed musicians to promote new riffs and tracks with a simple update, while users could directly Tweet songs to followers. Twitter never owned any music itself, drawing its tunes from iTunes, Spotify, or Rdio, but allowed free promotion and distribution.
The High Note
Twitter’s music app enjoyed a brief spell of popularity when some celebrities picked up on the promotion. The New York Times reported that Ryan Seacrest hyped up the app as a means of finding new followers and contacts, going so far as to have a dance party with the streaming music function. Twitter #music peaked at number six on Apple’s downloaded app list, but quickly fell down into the mid-thousands. Competitors like Vine, which allow users to play short videos (including music) within a Tweet, enjoyed steady popularity between the 10th and 20th spot of the Apple app rating.
Lessons Learned
Why did Twitter #music prove to be a bust rather than a boom? Several factors contributed to the downfall. First and foremost, social media users preferred to stay with their established music platforms, and social music sites like Spotify never flinched from the release of #music. Users with slower Internet services can load Twitter easily, since the site has a bare minimum of graphics to slow down the latency, but it takes a stronger Internet service to launch the streaming music function. Some people need satellite Internet to stream videos if their local provider cannot keep up. By comparison, DSL and cable Internet may not reach peak efficiency needed to load Flash programs.
Twitter’s Next Venture
Though Twitter took a blow to the chin, the company is sure to bounce back. Mashable reports that Twitter founder Ev Williams has begun to spend “98%” of his time in development of a new site called Medium, a publishing platform with about 30 employees. Whether this new venture does better than #music remains to be seen, but since Alexa pegs Twitter as the 9th most popular site on the Internet, the social music app’s failure to launch will not keep the company down.
Until next time,
Tim Douglas, Blogger for All Access Group
Tim is a music producer and father of 3 young boys. He runs a studio out of his home (which he also calls his sanctuary).
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