Social Media

Say What? – “All of My Friends And I Use Ping.”

Ping-Logo The other day I had a chance interaction. I met a Ping fan, which is like spotting a Dodo bird.

Mid-lecture at a university, I talked about the problems facing music-based social networks.

One girl kindly raised her hand and said:

"All of my friends and I use Ping."

In that moment, I almost stumbled, Ping has been so universally slammed within music industry circles that I've never written about it. Quickly, I conjured to mind that Ping is an ecommerce platform – inside a walled garden – that thinks it's a social network, but it's not. This is the generally what people say about Ping.

Steven Levy, a long-time Apple commentator, even called Ping half-baked. He's not alone. I don't think I've ever read a remark about Ping that wasn't sarcastic.

There's nothing compelling about Ping and the under experience is terrible. Who wants updates from PR puppets that all contain links asking you to buy stuff?

I don't.

Yet, the question remains: Are we wrong about Ping? Or did I meet the only fan?

Share your thoughts below.

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9 Comments

  1. I concur. I keep finding myself wishing for something magical to show up when I try to use it but it is merely just a way to sell more songs. Offers no real breakthrough that Apple is know for. I guess it happens. Everything can’t be a home run. It may just be the ground ball single that opens the inning up for more. I can only hope that is the case at this point.

  2. Frankly, I am amazed that you managed to find a Ping fan. My friends will tell you that I am a iDieHard iFanboy of iApple and I didn’t get Ping at all.

  3. I rarely encounter an artist who tries to push fan traffic to a Ping profile, rather than the other music social network and destination sites. I’m sure they get a decent amount of traffic just because it is in iTunes, but nothing that would make artists excited about their underwhelming platform.

  4. Did she say why she uses Ping? Sometimes we use bad technology until something better comes along and makes us realize how poor the previous experience was.

  5. From the standpoint of Apple generating interest in the service it’s a unabashed failure. I haven’t personally used the service so I can’t comment on how it actually works but Apple has such a leg up when it comes to the marketplace you’d have think they’d have a much better marketing initiative for something like Ping.

  6. Ping is indeed a failure. Apple may find a way to resuscitate it, but they had better hurry. Ping simply doesn’t play well with other social networks, and most people I know don’t want the obligation of maintaining yet another profile. And as Kyle noted, Ping is an ecommerce platform that seems uninterested in facilitating meaningful interaction and is mainly about funneling traffic to buy links.

  7. There's still hope, but that would require it to be more open. I'm not sure if Apple is willing to do that. Like other people suggested, no one wants another profile somewhere right now. If I can't Facebook Connect, I'm not signing up.

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