Twitter Launches the New Twitter Music Discover App

For all music fans out there Twitter has some exciting news!  Starting today Twitter Music will be available starting today at music.twitter.com and as a separate app for the iPhone through the App Store. A new way to discover emerging artistes and music is now at your fingertips.

The app has been tested with music artistes and influencers prior to its launch and today onwards you get a taste of it too.

What to Expect?

If you’re wondering what you can expect from the service, here’s a quick look at what’s on offer:

The main objective is to help you zero in on music that's popular on Twitter and music based on the bands you follow. The app is centered around four pages or tabs, which you can swipe through to access.

The Popular page gives you a look at new music that's trending across Twitter.

The  Emerging tab shows "hidden talent found in tweets."

The Suggested tab shows artistes you might like based on the artistes you follow on the service and who they follow.

The #NowPlaying tab shows songs your friends are listening to or tweeting about.

The Popular page and the Emerging tab give you access to information about what music is rocking the collective Twitterverse while the Suggested tab and the #NowPlaying tab focus on who you follow and your personal music taste.

Design and Other Perks

The iPhone app is a well designed one.  All the pages have a grid comprising artistes and songs; all you have to do is tap one of those and the song will start playing along with a spinning CD animation in the bottom left corner. If you tap on that, you get an enlarged CD which you can drag your finger around to fast forward or rewind within that song.

The best part really is that you don't have to leave the app to listen to music. Through integration of current music services like Rdio, Spotify and iTunes, Twitter allows listeners to play the songs right through the app or webpage. If you are using iTunes, you will only hear a preview, but with Rdio and Spotify, you have the advantage of logging in to your account to listen to the complete track.

Twitter has promised to continue to work towards adding additional music providers to the app.

Connect with the Stars

Another unique feature of the app is that Twitter has put artistes and bands at the center of the experience. One can go to artist's Twitter profile pages within the app and see what artistes they follow and listen to. It is also possible to search for artistes through the search field and play a selection of songs from them.

The Twitter #Music app will be out later today in the Apple App Store; there is no Android app yet. You can also enjoy the web version, which will be rolling out over the next few hours: music.twitter.com. Right now, the service is available in the UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, coming soon to other countries.