Last week Apple announced the launch of Ping, a social networking place for music linked to iTunes. Ping allows you to follow others to find out what they are listening to. You can also follow artists and see what music they are creating. As well as this users see upcoming concert dates and view a news feed, similar to Facebook. In order to tie it in with other Apple products, Ping is available on desktop, on iPhone and on the iPod touch. According to Mashable, Apple described Ping as “Facebook meets Twitter for music“.
But what about Myspace? Myspace launched as a music network website in 2003 and became the most popular social networking place. However, in recent years Myspace has struggled to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. In a BBC article Ping has been described as an ambitious move that will present a challenge to Myspace.
MySpace has traditionally attracted musicians, who use the site to share their own music and discover other artists. However, its growth has stagnated at around 60 million users and many people have migrated to other networks such as Facebook. Ping destroys whatever was left of MySpace’s market share.
However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Ping. Mashable told us that although they now have over 1 million users, there have been some spamming problems as well as limited availability internationally. The Telegraph have also reported that who is even using iTunes anymore to care about Ping? While it’s clear that Apple have a market for this product, it’ll be interesting to see how Ping grows and effects the likes of Myspace. Here at Sign-Up.to we’ll be keeping an eye on its development as a social networking platform.
Have you used Ping yet? What did you think? Get in touch with us in our comments box below!
September 8th, 2010 at 9:09 am
I think the concept of being able to see the music liked by my friends is good and, in this regard, whilst Apple/Ping obviously haven’t invented this concept the fact that they’re tapping into this seems positive. The implementation of it doesn’t seem as good as it could have been though, I mean, why haven’t they integrated Facebook with it?
I started using Spotify last week and was exploring the “social” side of this but this the implementation of this is simply the ability to see what your Facebook friends, who have installed the Facebook/Spotify app, are listening to. It would be great to have the ability to see everyone’s on Spotify’s music which is why sharemyplaylists.com, which I found from the Telegraph link you included (thank you!) seems cool!
September 8th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Hi James,
I agree, I like the idea of showing friends music I like but Spotify is already quite good at this. In our office, most of us use Spotify and post updates on Facebook of playlists and artists we like.
I’m glad you found the Telegraph link useful. I’m curious to see how Ping develops and grows so I’ll be keeping an eye on it (as well as using it myself!).
September 8th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Hey Leanne, to me, having to be FB friends with people and also having to install the Spotify app seem like unnecessary barriers
If it was more open they could then invite famous musicians to share their music collection, for example. Will be interesting to see if Spotify expand the social part.
I’ve signed up to Ping to check it out. If anyone wants to “follow” me I believe my public profile is http://c.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZConnections.woa/wa/viewProfile?userId=1036529343
September 9th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Hi James,
Agreed. I would like to see Spotify expand it, and I’m sure they will now with the launch of Ping.
Thanks for posting the link to your Ping account – I’ll start following you shortly
September 10th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
I just found out that I can add anyone to my Spotify friend list if I have their URL (me: http://open.spotify.com/user/jimbojambo83). I guess that means I don’t really need Ping! Will be interesting to see how it evolves though.