Apple having a Ping

Image via Wikipedia

“Having a Ping” is a bit of Aussie slang which translates roughly into “having a go”.  Today Apple, with their release of iTunes 10 and Ping, seem to be having a go at creating a social network around music, movies, and TV. 

Now I'm one who feels that social networks need to be built more on the niche, than on the wide ranging “all things to all teenagers” model of Facebook and Myspace, etc.  I tend to like the way real-life social networks work.  They are built around people with the same interests or the one interest.  And thus you can spend time interacting and talking about said interest with other people who have that interest.  Not get ambushed/stalked by old schools friends, ex’s, and parents that you were glad you lost contact with.

Services like Last.fm is one such niche social network built on music, and of course the added bonus of streaming said music.  But once you had to pay, the shine wore off, so now Apple has the answer -  providing a similar service, but attaching it to a existing ecosystem and one that they can make money from. 

Apple have realised that there is a need to replace the old discovery services that are going away, like Radio and Music Video programing.  Instead of trying to get an algorithm to do it, they are going to harness the awesome power of their user base.  For those who don’t know, Ping is:

“A social network for music.  Follow your favorite artists and friends to discover the music they’re talking about, listening to, and downloading.” - Apple.com.au

That last line should say “buying” instead of downloading, but we know what they mean.  The clever thing here is not the service, as there is Last.fm, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace which already do this sort of thing.  The trick is that Apple is bringing the customer, artist, money, and store together at the same place.  You may have been following Jack Johnson on Twitter and got the tweet regarding his new album.  But did you jump over to iTunes to buy it? or race over to your local to pick it up?

Now think about being in iTunes when you get the message about the new album.  Add to that, your friend who always finds the best music and can now point you straight to it.  Apple is trying to make the most of its user base to help you out, and get your money, I’ll let you decide if that is a bad thing.

The other interesting thing about the Ping service is how it is going to help the independent artist avoid the middleman, the record labels.  Well, I guess it will help everyone to avoid the record labels.  Artists can now publish and promote themselves right on the iTunes platform.  The connection that Ping could offer to the fans, the all-important word of mouth, and instant access to the content is what will be the hooks that will make the service and artist popular and successful.

The tweets today have been launch day normal, in that they have been complaining about the featured artists, and the lack of users, @dsilverman I’m looking at you.  But with a user base of 160 million I'm sure the launch day problems will go away.  At least it didn’t “fail whale”, that has got to be a good start.

Jason Remnant

...if it isn’t Broken, then there is a good chance it will work.