New social media developments can make the web even better. For example Pinterest is a runaway success. It can also be another Emperor’s New Clothes. Tech writers reckon Twitter #music won’t be another Ping. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being sold a fancy way of linking to content within Twitter when a regular Twitter link isn’t broken to begin with. Who really benefits?
Twitter #music has been launched as an iOS app for all your Apple devices, as well as a web app you can use in your browser.
The Guardian newspaper described it as
a great step forward when it comes to the marriage between music and social interaction
On paper it sounds like it should be because we all want sharing our favourite music to be easy. There’s plenty of reasons why this could turn out to be wildly successful.
But…
…in the rush to celebrate all things interwebby and new, it’s important we don’t forget to use common sense. Maybe I’m way off the mark here but I’m not convinced tech writers have remembered to do this.
My experience has been as follows.
1. Go to https://music.twitter.com
2. Discover that “sharing” really means links to music that you have to pay to hear in full.
3. Remember how links that load iTunes are akin to in-game messages that require money to continue.
4. Click on the Spotify link so I can stream the track via my paid “unlimited” subscription, only to discover that the link won’t work unless I have the Premium subscription.
Woah Nelly! I have to pay more to listen to a track via a Twitter link that I could listen to without paying more if I don’t access it via the Twitter link? Am I the only person who thinks this is utterly stupid?
No, surely not. I must be mistaken. There’s a rookie error I’m making here. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Yet there is the message from Spotify, “You will need to upgrade to a Premium Spotify account to play full tracks”.
Paying more for mobile use? OK, that makes sense. But paying more to use a link on Twitter?
Christ on a social media bike.
Did I mention they want us to pay more for this fancy new Twitter link?
