Twitter may be known for its 140-character “microblogging” service, but the company apparently has its sites set on developing something different — a new mobile music app that will allow users to play and share songs on Apple devices.The company reportedly plans to brand the service as Twitter Music and use technology from a start-up firm it recently acquired to stream music from SoundCloud, an increasingly popular audio-sharing service.While Twitter hasn’t formally announced the move, Bloomberg and CNET have reported that it is in the works. Twitter’s acquisition last year of music discovery service, We Are Hunted was designed to help the company make the push into music.Twitter is going beyond 140-character messages as it vies with social-networking rivals to get users to spend more time on its site. The company released a video app in January. Adding music would give record companies a way to promote new tracks by taking advantage of Twitter’s word-of-mouth network.Internet users increasingly rely on social networks to find new music as streaming services such as Spotify Ltd and Rdio Inc let subscribers share songs and playlists through Facebook. The dominant social network last week updated its news feed to make it easier to discover music.SoundCloud lets artists and music labels make songs available to users, who can then listen and make notations on the tracks. The partnership would let Twitter users share those songs using their cell phones, said a person familiar with the matter.Carolyn Penner, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Twitter, declined to comment on the development of a music app. Kristina Weise, a spokeswoman for SoundCloud, also declined to comment.The deal would be big news for SoundCloud, the Berlin-based music sharing service, which would power the streaming on the app.Music is one of the most powerful genres for Twitter, with seven of the top ten most followed users in the music industry. Justin Bieber recently trumped Lady Gaga for the top spot with 35.9 million followers. Gaga has 35 million, followed by Katy Perry with 33.5 million and Rihanna with 28.8 million.Twitter’s new music service could launch as early as later this month.