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Twitter will reportedly launch new music app on Friday following We Are Hunted acquisition

Twitter will reportedly launch new music app on Friday following We Are Hunted acquisition

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Twitter Windows 8 stock 1020
Twitter Windows 8 stock 1020

Twitter has been expanding its reach over the last year, and it's now moving into music: the company has just confirmed that it's acquired the team behind music discovery site We Are Hunted. The move was rumored by CNET last month and bolstered after We Are Hunted was taken offline; now, the team confirms that the site will be shutting down for good. Instead, the team will start working with Twitter on a new, undisclosed project. "We will continue to create services that will delight you, as part of the Twitter team," the site's main page now reads. "There's no question that Twitter and music go well together. Artists turn to Twitter first to connect with fans, and people share and discover new songs and albums every day."

CNET reported in March that Twitter was buying We Are Hunted in order to launch a standalone music streaming app based on the technology; according to sources, it would offer personalized music recommendations and stream music through SoundCloud. Now, the acquisition is a sure thing, but we still can't say with certainty what's coming. For now, neither Twitter nor We Are Hunted has anything to announce. "We wish we could say but we're not yet ready to talk about it," says the We Are Hunted team. "You'll hear more from us when we are."

Update: As TechCrunch has pointed out, we've got at least one hint that a Twitter music app is coming. Ryan Seacrest has posted the following tweet, suggesting that it's in testing now.

Update 2: According to AllThingsD, we may be seeing the fruits of the We Are Hunted acquisition sooner than expected — the site reports that Twitter plans to launch a new music app tomorrow. Twitter Music is said to make artist and song recommendations to users based on metadata including their Twitter feed, and will hook into services such as iTunes, SoundCloud, and Vevo to provide track previews and video clips.

Update 3: Twitter has gone live with a placeholder music site at music.twitter.com that hints at the imminent launch of its "Trending Music" service and suite of mobile apps.