On Sep. 1, Steve Jobs announced Apple’s new music-based social network, Ping, at Apple’s fall keynote. While this news might seem like a good idea to most music artists and fans, some people are skeptical of Ping’s ability to succeed in today’s saturated world of social networks.
Although Ping has already reached over 1 million users -- within 48 hours following its launch -- critics say that one of Ping’s toughest obstacles will be competing with Facebook. Many online users have already chosen Facebook and Twitter as their go-to site to spend their time. Ping has a long way to go to catch up to Facebook’s 500 million users.
eWeek.com, an online technology publication, listed 10 reasons why Apple’s Ping network won’t work. Here is a summary:
2. Buzz should be a lesson
3. Full Facebook integration would be nice
4. Speaking of Facebook – it’s a titan
5. Specialized services rarely do well
6. Growing pains
7. Success is a relative term
8. Artists will need to buy into it
9. The future isn’t in iTunes as users know it
10. It will get lost in the mobile noise
I think that a music-based social network is a great idea, even though it has already been attempted (MySpace Music, Last.fm, Zune Social). Apple does have a bigger advantage, however, because of its large iTunes user base.
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James Cisneros
1 comment:
I agree that Apple has a bigger audience, so far, and an advantage in the i-Tunes base. But, if done well, I think another music forum could be very popular. MySpace got away from its original intent; and, it got too cumbersome with all of its various applications. Too crowded; too difficult to get around various Web pages because there was no consistency to the page designs. FB keeps it simple; like the Google homepage. I think simple is good. As fancy as some people, or designers, get, it can actually be detrimental to the message or the plan.
Music is a great message in and of itself. Keep it simple, and it will be easier to get the message out. Ping can accomplish that, if they don't get carried away with jazzing it up, so to speak.
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