Twitter is many things to many people, but we have to admit we never had it pegged down as a new file-sharing tool. However, two new services make it just that: FileTwt and SongTwit.Both are as simple to use as Twitter itself. FileTwt lets you upload any file of up to 20MB in size, then share it with your entire Twitter network or individual followers. It’s not just for music, of course – it can be used to share photos, documents or any file-type you like. When people click on the link in your Twitter feed, they’re directed to a FileTwt page to download the file. Here’s a sample tweet from a file we uploaded.SongTwit works slightly differently, in that it’s built for music. You can choose tunes from the service’s own library, by pasting in a specific web address, or by uploading your own MP3 (or various other formats). When people click on the link in your tweet (here’s another sample from us), they don’t get to download the file, but instead get to listen to it in a player powered by Imeem.Annoyingly, ten minutes after we uploaded our 30-second fragment of a song (which we made ourselves, copyright lawyers!), it’s still “processing, please check back soon”. Maybe by the time you read this, it’ll have finished.Quick, simple, and the latest Big Threat To The Music Industry? Well, not quite. Yes, people will be able to share copyrighted music using both services. But the 20MB limit on FileTwt, and the streaming structure of SongTwit, mean that this isn’t a problem on the scale of P2P or the new breed of file-hosting sites like RapidShare.In fact, these Twitter file-sharing services could actually help artists to promote their music. It’s a quick and easy way to upload a new song (or demo, for that matter) and get it out to their fanbase. You can imagine a popular artist working in the studio and posting fragments to keep fans informed, for example. And while some labels will prefer to do this through their own sites and content management system, many more artists will be pleased at the chance to do it without that investment.So, Twitter file-sharing isn’t going to kill recorded music, and it’s not going to revolutionise digital distribution either. It’s just another neat thing for the toolbox of digital-savvy artists looking for ways to connect with their fans.
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