Twitter acquisition move hints at music service

The music.twitter.com site went live late on Thursday

Micro-blogging site Twitter is rumoured to be launching a new music service after buying the music discovery site We Are Hunted.

We Are Hunted confirmed the deal, adding "there's no question that Twitter and music go well together" - and said it was shutting down.

The hashtag #music is also featured on the newly-launched music.twitter.com.

Reports suggest the new service will offer personalised recommendations on music through its own dedicated app.

US celebrity host Ryan Seacrest confirmed the existence of Twitter's new app on Thursday via a tweet: "playing with @twitter's new music app (yes it's real!)... there's a serious dance party happening at idol right now".

The music app could be announced as soon as Friday.

The We Are Hunted acquisition actually happened in 2012, according to reports, suggesting that the music service has long been in the works.

In seven years, Twitter has accumulated 200 million users worldwide, who now send an average of 400 million short messages - or tweets - every day.

Twitter's latest move comes as music streaming - where the songs are hosted on servers by companies such as Spotify rather than bought and kept on consumers' computers - has taken off amid a boom in digital downloading.

The streaming market is now worth £49m to record labels in the UK, the trade body BPI has said.

It comes as iPhone-maker Apple is reported to have agreed a deal with the biggest music label Universal to create an internet radio service similar to Pandora using its iTunes platform.