The Music bar, launched today will offer users the chance to discover, bookmark and share music found on the web. The new music bar, a free download for Firefox, is a reinvention of the Twones service that has been running for a while.
Twones works to scour the Internet for music sources, from myspace music to embedded videos and music streaming from blogs. The bar will allow you to search for music or be fed random music choices from across the web. But the music bar is not just a music research tool, it is far more.
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The music bar becomes the ‘killer app’ for this service by its ability to bookmark music and share with others or scrobble to your Last Fm account. This social element will be a strong benefit for use- the current sharing options for Spotify or iTunes are quite limited to sharing a url whislt BlipFM may struggle to compete with the music breadth and depth Twones can access.
The music discovery works to show you every song in context of the site or page it is on, giving you further insight into the song, the background or the artist. So, for example, if I listen to some Ska music, I will also see the Ska fan site it is running on. This in situ listening not only boosts my musical experience, it also ensures the site owners and tastemakers are rewarded for their efforts in finding and sharing the music.
The random function at launch will be pretty much any random music but in time the service will be able to deliver random choices within certain categories, so I can get random choices for prog rock only whilst someone else can have Soul music randomly chosen.
Socially, Twones works to connect you and your friends with a sidebar that shows what your friends are listening to. An easy way to discover new music that works for your tastes.
With the music bar, Twones effectively turns your browser into one huge music library, with an estimated 70,000 music sources already indexed and growing. The ability to hit the random button feels like a Stumbleupon for music with the genre choices coming which will be awesome. The ability to scrobble your listens will also help music lovers keep an independent record of their listening habits.
The music bar will be firefox only to start with but the team are working on other extensions. Those that don’t wish to download the music bar will be able to experience the discovery service without the bookmarking, scrobbling or sharing.
As a music lover, this is an awesome service. Spotify and Blip FM have been great in helping me discover ever more music and the Twones bar looks set to be a welcome addition to my music listening and discovery. The ability to scrobble also means it will compliment my music consumption rather than being an alternative.
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