My Initial Thoughts of Ping, Apples New Social Commerce Tool for iTunes
Ping is the new “Social Commerce” site that is devoted to Apples iTunes application. My initial response is mixed at this point. I think there are some awfully great potential here but the question remains in the “Social Networking” market is whether the product is flexible enough to gather a significant following.
Signing up for the service is fairly easy. In order to use it you need to download the latest version of iTunes 10. From there you login via your iTunes account and start creating your profile.
The profile is very simple and straightforward. You are given the opportunity to put 10 songs that you like in it, with the album artwork available to give your followers an opportunity to get a glimpse of some of the music you listen to. But from there it gets a little sketchy.
Ping does not offer a service at this time that allows users at this time to scan their (Email, Facebook, Twitter, .etc) friends to see if they are already using the service. That in turn forces users to follow their friends feeds to see if they have signed up for the site. That relationship is similar to Twitter in that you can follow someone but they do not necessarily have to follow you. You can control who you follow or even choose to not let anyone follow you if you so choose.
The number of bands/artists that are on the site is severely limited at this point and I would expect that number to grow as this new feature has just been announced.
My biggest criticism of Ping so far is that it is truly rooted in “Social Commerce” which means only albums which are available on iTunes service can be posted/liked/discussed. Instead of being able to post or like music directly from my iTunes Library, I am forced to go to the iTunes store and use links available there to make my thoughts public which I do not particularly care for. If I am listening to a Radiohead track I would prefer to make my comments right within my iTunes Library than going over to the Store to make those comments.
As stated before only music available on iTunes is able to be discussed so, for example, if I wanted to “Like” the Beatles ‘Hey Jude’, that is impossible at this point. Music fans should not be limited to what is available or not available in the store for download which is limiting.
I feel in a way that much of this has been rehashed and it does not offer something that is awe-inspiring as of yet. While I understand it is early, part of whether people will use it comes down to whether at initial start-up it encourages use.
The other question of course is that iTunes encompasses more than just music. Television, movies, applications, etc., are just some of the areas that could be expanded into.
Lastly, there was talk of this available to be linked with Facebook which at this time, that application appears to be shut down which would appear to be an egg on the face of Apple.
So at this point, after a couple hours playing around on it, the best grade is “Incomplete”.