Twitter launches new music service

TWITTER has announced it is launching a new service that will change the way people find and enjoy music on the site.

Twitter #music uses activity on the site - including tweets and conversations - to detect the most popular tracks and emerging artists.

It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and centre: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists.

The songs on Twitter #music currently come from three sources: iTunes, Spotify or Rdio. By default, you will hear previews from iTunes when exploring music in the app. 

Here are several features of the new service:

* If you’re interested in the songs that have been tweeted by the artists and people you follow on Twitter, you can navigate to #NowPlaying to view and listen to those songs.

* If you’re scrolling through a chart and you want to learn more about a band, you can tap their avatar to see their top song or tap their Twitter username to go to their profile.

* If you want to listen to music from the artists a band you like follows, you can search for their name using the search icon in the top right corner. Then tap one of the artists you’re interested in and hit the play button to begin listening, or press play on the player to listen to all the artists.

* As you discover new songs that you want to share with your followers on Twitter, tap the spinning disc in the lower left corner. This opens the player, and you can tweet from there using the Tweet icon in the top right corner.

You can download Twitter #music from the App Store while the web version is at music.twitter.com. 

The service is available in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. It will be brought to other countries - and those on Android - in the near future.