Actually I use Rdio, Not Spotify, Your Link Is No Good To Me
Is there an etiquette for sharing music? A link to any of the music services, even the most popular ones, will inevitably fall on a few deaf ears of people you’re trying to reach. Not for lack of interest in the music, but rather in having to use a specific service. Since it’s 2013, you can’t just listen to music anymore, you need to be tied into an ecosystem. So, what’s the right way to share music, and actually get the other person to click through and listen?
iTunes, Spotify, Rdio, Xbox Music, Google Music, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, Napster, MOG/Daisy, eMusic, and more. It’s a crazy and confusing time for people buying or renting music. This list of music stores and services is the reason that Youtube is the number one place for music online. The video service snuck up on actual music destinations because it was the most universally accessible way to share a song and get the other person to listen. It doesn’t matter whether someone uses iPhone or Android, it doesn’t even matter if they use Windows Phone. Youtube is on TVs, computers, tablets, phones, and basically any device with a screen. It’s accessible to the point of annoying.
The mask of being a video service may scare some bands away, but it doesn’t matter if you didn’t film a video, doing a lyric video may actually be more popular and favorable to people. And if your band doesn’t have the time for a lyric video, that’s fine too because a static image while the music plays will do just fine. Bands have a better shot at monetizing their music with Google ads on their Youtube video than they do putting the same music on Spotify. There’s very few reasons for someone not to put their music on Youtube as they are uploading to any other place online.
iTunes may be the most popular place to buy music and provide one of the best experiences, but it still doesn’t have that killer social aspect that’s sorely lacking. Spotify and Rdio were built in a social age, but still have a long way to go getting the amount of users it takes to be considered the default option. The other services are all a distant after thought when considering how to share music. If phases like “You have to listen to this new song,” or “Give this band a listen,” are constantly being written in your different feeds, you may want to consider sharing links to the song on Youtube to get the best click through rate.
Update: Based on Twitter feedback and just wishful thinking there may be another clever solution. What if you were able to choose your preferred music service in your Twitter client of choice and it would then automatically convert other links for you.
Someone sends out a link for music on Amazon MP3, but since you have chosen iTunes as your preferred service in Tweetbot, you only see and are redirected to the iTunes store to check out the album. If the music isn’t found at your preferred choice, it could default to a second choice, or just the original link and you would then know it was only available at the provided link.