So Apple threw its hat into the social networking ring yesterday. I signed up, of course, just to see what it was all about.
The jury is still out on this one for me, but there were a few things I immediately liked:
No browser. I almost never log in to my Facebook account from my computer. Unless someone asks me a direct question, or I want to check out a photo that someone tagged of me. I never go to the Twitter web site, either. I do, however, use Twitter all day long on my phone, my iPad, and in Tweetie for Mac. To me, browsers are for browsing. Literally everything else is better suited to a real app. So the fact that Ping happens in iTunes on the Mac and on my phone is perfect for me.
Sign up was super simple. Apple already has my info, thanks to my iTunes account. So there was literally nothing to do to get signed up, except to agree to sign up.
Privacy. Couldn’t be easier. Either I let anyone follow me, I approve all followers, or I don’t let anyone follow me. That’s it. Three choices. Pick one.
Look and feel. It’s not an ugly web site. It’s iTunes, which is familiar. (iTunes may not be Apple’s prettiest user interface, but it’s Helen of Troy compared to Twitter and Facebook.) The look borrows just enough from the iTunes music store to be easy and familiar. It’s also fairly snappy. Navigating around is about a thousand times easier than a Facebook page.It’s limited to music only. I actually think this is an advantage. There are certainly things missing in Ping, but I appreciate that Apple isn’t trying to do everything at once here. This is a place to discuss old and discover new music, and nothing more. That’s refreshing, in the way that Twitter is all about the 140 characters and nothing more. Facebook has turned into a convoluted mess.
I found a few friends and a few artists I liked somewhat easily. Most of my favorite artists weren’t signed up yet, of course. I assume that will change in time. But that did lead me to the bigger question:
Is Apple the right company to be doing a social network? Apple likes control, and it likes to guard secrets about new products. Those are two things that don’t mix with a social network.One of my friends on Twitter quipped that Apple must think we all like Lady Gaga, because it was suggesting that we follow her. The system should be able to analyze our libraries and pick artists we’re more likely to want to follow, in other words. But that wasn’t the reason why Ping suggested Lady Gaga. It suggested Lady Gaga because she was one of only a handful of artists it could suggest. Apple wanted to keep the details of Ping a secret before yesterday, so they only told a few choice artists about it, just to have some content out of the gate. The price for that secrecy was a bunch of people signing up on day one with few people to follow.
That need for secrecy led to a sour experience for some people, right out of the gate.
As I watched Steve unveil Ping I immediately thought that it would be a good service for artists. What a great way for them to get the word out about their music. Be active on Ping, develop a reputation, have a lot of people like your work, and that will most definitely lead to more sales. You’d have to be a bonehead not to sign up and spend a little time on Ping if your music is sold on iTunes.
I also saw how Ping would obviously lead to more revenue for Apple, as the iTunes store was likely to benefit from all those extra links. In the end, this is all about money, and that’s fine. As long as the benefits to the rest of us are great enough.But I’m not completely convinced of Ping’s benefits to the rest of us. Sure, I can follow my friends, see what they’re listening to, and find a lot of new music. But that assumes I like the same music a lot of my friends do. And that’s not a safe assumption.
I have a few friends with similar tastes, but most of my friends listen to crap, to be honest. And they probably think what I listen to is crap. So where does that leave us?
I could limit my “circle of friends” on Ping to just those who share my musical tastes. But how are my other friends going to feel about that? Chances are, as with Facebook, I’m going to follow them out of guilt and just let them spew nonsense all over my recent activity. Which means Ping will end up being yet another service where I have to wade through a sea of uninteresting garbage to get to the one or two good recommendations I want.Ideally, Ping would analyze my iTunes library, find others with similar tastes, and recommend just those people for me to follow. I don’t want to follow my friends; I want to follow other fans of what I like.
I also don’t like that I can’t really just start a conversation about something at random on Ping. I can “like” an album or song and then comment on that, or I can find an album or track and “Post” on it, in which case I suppose I can ask a question like: “Does anyone have this new Pat Metheny recording? What do you think of it?” But everything revolves around those iTunes store links. I can’t ask what people think about Pat Metheny in general, ask when his new tour will kick off, etc., without tying it to an iTunes link. It’s inconvenient, and a bit pushy, if you ask me.
So I’ll keep my eye on Ping. And I’ll of course check it out when I’m looking for some new music. And I’ll try to follow my favorite artists, so that I know when their new stuff is coming out. But Apple has to add more to this musical conversation before I’ll be convinced whether or not it’s going to take flight.
We’ve seen a lot of social networks fail in the last few years. Maybe the world really doesn’t need more than Facebook and Twitter. Maybe that’s all the distraction we can handle.
I think Apple is right to try and make something work here, considering the captive audience of iTunes users it has at its disposal. They have to protect their dominance of the online music world, after all. But I fear that they are getting into this more out of a sense that they HAVE to, rather than because they want to. They can make this happen, but it’s going to take some more thought.
