TwitMusic reinvents Twitter for singers and musicians

Twitter has fast become the favorite tool for singers and musicians to spread the word about their music.

Lady Gaga, for instance, has over 22 million followers while Justin Bieber has almost 20 million. And as banal as it sounds, fans from both sides even engaged in a Twitter war recently.

But there’s so much more that can be done to enhance Twitter as a music discovery service, according to the founders of Philippines-based startup TwitMusic, which aims to increase the virality of music on the social network.

They were recently interviewed by TheNextWeb about their current plans and upcoming features.

Started five months ago by Italian-Filipino brothers Stefano and Christian Fazzini, as well as marketing director Sandra Seifert (who’s also a beauty queen) and Marc Seifert, TwitMusic is a site that allows users to easily play and share new music via their Twitter accounts.

While SoundCloud, YouTube, and many other sites are in this space as well, TwitMusic is different in its Twitter-centric nature. It affords users more varied interactions with Twitter, while other sites barely skim the surface.

Sharing on Twitter can be done in one click, and users can either ‘Love’, retweet, or use the hashtag ‘#nowplaying’.

They can also leave comments, and see how many times a track has been played. The site is designed to look like Twitter, providing a seamless experience. Users can start using it right away by logging in with their Twitter accounts. If they like a particular track, they can click on a link and buy the song via iTunes.

Artists, on the other hand, can post their profiles on the site. Their can upload music, and spread the word via Twitter. Some basic analytics are available for musicians to track how their songs are doing, who’s listening to them, and what they are saying.

It appears that TwitMusic has gotten quite a bit of traction, with prominent artists like Jason Mraz, Bryan Adams, MC Hammer, and Bow Wow among the 3,400 artists on the service. Mraz recently released his new single “I Won’t Give Up” using TwitMusic, although any musician can sign up and use it, not just well-known ones. So far, 7,500 songs have been uploaded, touching 11.6 million Twitter followers.

Investors are interested as well, although they haven’t hammered out a deal. Eventually, they aim to move to the United States from the Philippines, and be near where the entertainment industry is.

At the moment, they are focused on getting more content and growing its user base.

They are also moving towards a freemium model, charging artists for advanced features like in-depth analytics. They are also looking at potentially offering songs for sale on the site itself, creating another revenue stream.