Apple’s Ping review

In a press conference yesterday, Apple announced its new social network, Ping. Ping, which allows users to follow artists, like albums, and add friends, is included in the iTunes 10 update, and is accessed through the iTunes Store. I spent a few hours in Ping this afternoon. Here’s what I think.

When you first access Ping, iTunes will as you if you’d like to turn Ping on. Confirmed prompts you to log in via your iTunes account, and then proceeds to the profile information page. Here, users can input a few bits of basic data, such as real name (Ping does not use usernames), location, favorite genres, and a short About Me section.

Interestingly enough, Ping only allows users to select from three pre-determined genres, which, for a social network based around music, seems far too restraining. Another limitation is profile picture, which has to be approved by moderators before showing up on on your profile.

Once your Ping profile has been set up, you’ll be directed to the main page, where you’ll receive suggestions to follow featured artists, as well as artists and other users with whom you share genres. For example, if you list Pop as a genre, Ping may suggest you follow Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, as well users who also lists Pop as a genre. After you follow an artist or other user, their activities will appear under “Recent Activity” on your homepage, similar to Facebook’s status updates.

One feature I really enjoy is the artist page. Resembling an artist’s last.fm profile page, Ping will display comments, information about concerts, and who “likes” the artist. However, the thing that really caught my attention was the “Music this artist listens to” feature, which displays a small number of songs, personally selected by the artist, that have influenced him or her. Of course, these all link to the iTunes album information, where users may purchase the songs immediately. While Twitter brought artists and celebrities closer to fans by allowing a peek into their sometimes-interesting personal lives, Ping aims to close the gap even more by allowing artists to recommend music directly to their fans.

Another interesting feature is the integration of a “Like” button into the iTunes Store. Users can “like” media such as albums and songs, and see how many others have the same music.  So far, the liking system has not been immensely popular – or at least as popular as Facebook’s – with the number of likes on top-selling songs in just the hundreds. However, once Ping has expanded its user base a bit, we could start seeing numbers potentially in the hundreds of thousands or more.

Overall, Ping is still pretty modest for an Apple product. Huge artists, such as Lady Gaga, have followers only in the 100,000s, as opposed to the millions for Facebook and Twitter. So far, it doesn’t seem like Ping has much new to offer that one couldn’t get from other popular social networking websites, namely Twitter, Facebook, and last.fm. However, with what Ping does have – artist profile pages with integrated links to purchasing your favorite artists’ favorites – and what it may offer in the future could be spun into a unique angle for the music-loving crowd.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Tagged as: Apple, iTunes, Ping