When last we discussed ways to use Twitter to share music, in the article Twitter, Tweeting and Tunes!, we ended the discussion with “even as I type this article, I suspect there is somebody hard at work on the next great idea that will put even more music into the Twitter world!” Sure enough, Twiturm has proven that point.
Twiturm is amazingly simple to use. You don’t even have to sign up for an account at Twiturm as you use your Twitter account. Just log in with your Twitter username and password, and Twiturm allows you to upload and post to Twitter straight from the Twiturm interface – as you can see with the form to the right.
It’s that simple. Now you can share your music on Twitter via a shortened URL that links to a Twiturm player page. The player page allows visitors to play, download, or retweet the tracks, and keeps statistics on how many plays and downloads each song gets.
The developer behind Twiturm is a musician who wanted to build a service where he could upload, host, and share his own music with the world all in one place, and encourages other musicians to use it to promote their own work and their bands.
Twiturm is intended to be used as a place to share music that you create. Hence the name:
Twiturm is a good service for upcoming musicians who want to spread the word about their music. It can be used as a promotional tool – though as you’ll see later it does not have enough traffic (yet) to make it the only way you promote your music. MySpace has been the focus for the promotions by many musicians – but sites like Twiterm in conjuction with Twitter are starting to make Twitter par of the marketing approach for many musicians.
Twiturm won’t support users who post copyrighted or licensed music to share with others and shuts accounts down when they discover someone’s been abusing the service. They really want it to be a place to discover music – not just to get an illegal copy of a popular song. Though as they get more popular, I imagine that stopping all the abuse will get to be a challenge. At their present size, the RIAA is not after them, but growth could bring positive and negative attention.
The Internet visitor chart from Compete.com highlights how these Twitter music applications have all just taken off in recent months (as with all new sites, Compete tends to dramatically under count the data). Here at Musicplayer.me we’ve reviewed all these apps – Twiturn, Tra.kz and Song.ly and you can see how Song.ly remains the best known – with Twiturm picking up.
The one issue all these apps have in common is the same one that Twitter has – keeping users. Various reports indicate that Twitter has a low return/usage rate. Many folks try it out – few become true addicts. Reports indicate that “40 percent of Twitter users have not tweeted since their first day on Twitter (i.e., the account was most likely created and subsequently forgotten about)” and the same appears to be true for most of Twitter’s companion applications.
Twiturm is also doing a good job constantly enhancing the site. Since the January launch they have added a new design and layout (less of a product ad and more showing other tweets), a better audio player , an API for other sites to integrate with them and the ability to share links on profile and music pages. They report that an embeddable player is on the way. They also provide support via another Web 2.0 site Get Satisfaction which allows both official company reps as well as other community members to offer assistance.
What makes Twiturm unique is the focus on singers and bands uploading their own songs – you really can discover some new music here. Sing.ly and Tra.kz are more about just social media – what are other people listening to, even if it is the same old music that all your other friends are listening to.
Repeating what we said last time we reviewed Twitter music sharing apps, “Even as I type this article, I suspect there is somebody hard at work on the next great idea that will put even more music into the Twitter world! ”
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