Twitter #Music Died Because No One Even Knew It Existed

Screengrab: WIRED

As of next month, you will no longer be allowed to use Twitter’s #Music app. And if your reaction to hearing that was “what the hell is Twitter’s #Music app?” you’re not alone. Which was the problem.

It wasn’t that #Music was a bad idea—music fans are obviously on Twitter, and many even discover artists through the service—it was just an unnecessary one. So when Twitter announced last week that #Music is being removed from the iTunes App Store and will cease working as an app on April 18, it was met with a collective, “Wait, was that still a thing?”

The app, which pointed fans to new music via artists’ and other’s tweets, provided a cool service, but it also provided it in a very crowded space. There are scores of apps vying to bring tunes to your device, and after an initial ride atop the app charts, #Music ranked 165th amongst free music apps last fall. It also didn’t help that #Music essentially just points users to other services; while users with Spotify and/or Rdio could play full tracks within #Music, it still played middleman in an unsatisfying way.

“#Music is just the first of many music experiences or apps that are going to falter in the next year,” Forrester analyst James McQuivey says. “There is now a superabundance of music options for getting the exact same music into a speaker near you.”

As more established names like Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, and Rdio continue to dominate, it’s “going to be harder and harder for anyone single app or provider to differentiate from the others,” McQuivey added, and it will just get harder for anyone to lure listeners away from those services. With so many artists using Twitter as a way to reach fans (seven of the top 10 tweeters are musicians), it made sense why the service would want to leverage that for engagement—but music fans already know how to find new tracks on Twitter itself, no additional app necessary.

But the death of #Music could also be an indicator of something larger. Even the established services like Spotify have yet to make a profit—and, CNET notes, 2014 could be the year that decides their fate—Twitter can part with #Music and still have other services in its coffers, but the effects of music licensing on others’ bottom lines may mean they won’t be so lucky as the little blue bird. Eventually, music services themselves could wind up as just something you buy when you get new headphones or pick a data plan for your car.

“Music will eventually end up as just a feature in somebody else’s product,” McQuivey says. “This transition may take time, but eventually, nearly every digital service we depend on will toss in music as a nice feature to sweeten the deal.”

That’s sweet for somebody—just not Twitter.