Twitter is an online service where millions of people go to chat. Now the company behind it is hoping that it will also be where they go to find new music.

Twitter is introducing a music feature that is expected to use the listening habits of users’ friends and contacts to recommend music for them to listen to, giving its more than 200 million users more to send tweets about and another reason to stay logged in. But exactly what form the music service will take is unclear.

On Friday, Twitter set up a page on the Web that was blank except for the company’s silhouetted bird logo, “#music” and a sign-in tab that, when clicked, asked users to give a trending music application access to their account. The wording of the page changed slightly throughout the day, but it described an application that could scan users’ Twitter feeds, update their profiles and even post tweets, suggesting an ability to alert users about the music their friends were listening to.

Another clue to the service is Twitter’s acquisition of We Are Hunted, which recommends new music based on social media conversation. After weeks of rumors, Twitter announced on Thursday that it had bought the company.

Shavone Charles, a spokeswoman for Twitter, declined to answer questions about the new service. Instead, she directed reporters to an announcement by We Are Hunted that it was shutting down its own site, though it would “continue to create services that will delight you, as part of the Twitter team.”

Recommendations based on social media interactions have become common throughout digital media for things like restaurants and shopping. Many online music services offer these features as well. Spotify, for example, can broadcast its users’ playlists through Facebook. Twitter’s advantage, in addition to its size, may lie in the devotion of its customers.

“Music is one of the most tweeted topics,” said Ted Cohen, a former label executive who is now a consultant to digital music companies. “Discovery is critical to the growth of music, and the new gatekeeper is recommendations from trusted sources.”

Technology sites (and Twitter) were full of speculation on Friday about what the service would offer and how it would be opened and marketed. AllThingsD, a technology news site, reported late Thursday that the Twitter service might be introduced this weekend, in time for the beginning of the Coachella music festival in the Southern California desert.

But Paul Tollett, the president of Goldenvoice, the company behind Coachella, said in an e-mail on Friday that Twitter had nothing official planned with the festival.

AllThingsD also reported that the service would at first be open only to “influencers” like celebrities, and for a time on Friday, Twitter’s music page said it was “invite only.”

One of those apparent influencers was Ryan Seacrest, the “American Idol” host, who sent a pair of tweets late Thursday describing the service. It “shows what artists are trending,” he wrote, and “also has up and coming artists.”

He added: “Playing with @twitter’s new music app (yes it’s real!).”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/business/media/clues-emerge-about-twitters-music-feature.html?partner=rss&emc=rss