River Run Tech Blog: What's All This Ping About
Posted by Eric Torres on Tue, Sep 07, 2010 @ 03:01 PM
Part of Apple’s new software announcement last week was the integration of Apple’s iTunes Ping into the newest version of iTunes. iTunes Ping, commonly referred to as simply “Ping” is a 
social network that has been integrated into the largely popular music software. Described by Steve Jobs as "Twitter and Facebook meet iTunes," Ping aims to let the already-existing and rather massive audience of iTunes users “friend” each other, stay up-to-date on their friends' musical tastes, and like/comment on things found around iTunes. Another Ping feature allows users to rate bands and songs.
The main purpose of the social networking aspect of iTunes is to allow users to discover new music, follow artists, as well as see up to date comments posted by their friends. This aspect of it, is fairly similar to a Facebook or a Twitter account, but keeps all of your music information within a software program that most people already use fairly often, and some people even use daily. What is also great about Ping, is that similar to Facebook and Twitter, Ping is accessible on the go, with Ping being available in iTunes for both iPod Touches, and iPhones.
Ping will also create a custom chart showing music selections based on those followed. Basically, you can follow your friends or favorite artists and see what kind of music they are listening to. The actual activity stream consists of your friend connections, purchases, comments, and concert plans. Every time a song or album is mentioned, a Buy button is displayed, and this offers additional drop-down choices for Like, Post, Gift This Album, Add to Wish List, Tell a Friend, Copy Link, and Share on Facebook or Twitter. In a demonstration during the official release announcement, Jobs showed how users can also post videos and photos to the service, as well as search concert information and tag concerts attended.
Getting started with Ping is easy. Ping requires iTunes 10 and by default Ping is not activated. Apple must have learned from all the complaints about Facebook's privacy, by making users turn this feature on themselves. Once you install the latest version of iTunes, you can find Ping in the iTunes Store menu bar and click on Ping to set up your account. Once your Ping account is created you can then find Ping in the navigation bar to the left. For a step by step tutorial on how to activate your Ping account click here.
There are over 160 million iTunes users, all of whom are able to sign up for the new Ping service. Given the shear numbers, I can only assume Ping will be a hit, but only time will tell.