Billboard and Twitter team up for real time music charts
As the digital revolution reaches its pinnacle, fans, artists and the industry alike struggle to rank music in a scene based almost entirely on social clout. To combat the uncertainty, Billboard and Twitter have partnered up to unveil the first ever Real-Time charts. The first two charts to be debuted are the Billboard Trending 140 and the Emerging Artists rankings, all dictated by fan interactions on Twitter. The Trending 140 will display the most shared tracks in the U.S. over the past 24 hours, as well as a weekly summary presented as the Billboard Twitter Top Tracks. Song shares are tracked through a variety of ways including links to Spotify, Vevo, and iTunes, hashtags like #nowplaying and #np, as well as various terms associated with the tracks playing such as "music," "song," "track," and "listen."
Twitter may be interested in acquiring Soundcloud
The internet was abuzz today with the latest rumored acquisition in the social media space, this time at the hands of 140 character megalith Twitter. Numerous reputable tech websites reported that the company may be considering a possible acquisition of the "YouTube of Audio," Soundcloud. Recently given a $700 million valuation after a successful round of investment, Soundcloud may be Twitter's answer to its declining growth and a last ditch effort to save face after Twitter Music crashed and burned in 2013. How Soundcloud may benefit from the acquisition is still unclear, although the key may lie in Twitter's ability to acquire licensing deals with all of the major labels, something that the Swedish company has yet to accomplish -- a shortcoming that has garnered it significant criticism from industry professionals and artists alike.