Ping: It's even worse than it appeared
scripting.com
scripting.com
I was a little unnerved to see apple do practically my exact idea after 3 months of hardcore dedication to Like.fm, but it's ultimately validated my idea and glad to see Pings initial response isn't so good.
p.s., those side-sticking things are really annoying.
I can't say about Spotify since I've never used it, but how strong is their social component? Can you use the service, share links, and browse profiles via a browser for Spotify? It seems Spotify is for listening to music like an iTunes replacement, where Like.fm is for analyzing and sharing what you listened to (the info). So we have different focuses.
Give listeners and artists an import tool for LastFM/SoundCloud/iLike/Spotify/etc., learn from SoundCloud about player usability, and you might attract lots of users who got disenchanted with your direct competitors and predecessors.
Good luck & keep up the good work. Judging by the scripting.com review, Ping is just another top-down sales-driver. We still need somebody to do it the right way.
Apple doesn't seem comfortable letting iTunes users speak directly to each other. I get the idea that they are uncomfortable allowing anything that would require moderation happen in their walled garden. And the anarchic and freewheeling nature of a vibrant social network seems somewhat counter to Apple's culture.
The part that got my attention during the keynote was that it's supposed to cover concerts as well as recorded music and media; that's a very interesting model to build a social networking application around. It's early days yet, and if Apple can recruit enough artists that can use the channel to engage their audience, and loosens up and lets people talk to each other without requiring that every single gesture they make on Ping be tied to their actions in iTunes (i.e. let regular people post comments unadorned, or even their own music and videos) it may yet become a game changer.
Ping should be considered a replacement for the old paper-based music magazines: a channel from the music companies to the interested music lovers. An improvement over the old channel, as it makes it much easier for the consumers to buy new music, and much easier for the bands to provide small snippets of news, pictures etc.
Apple is in the business of selling stuff.
For example, "Inception" could be pitched as "Like 'Ocean's Eleven' meets 'The Matrix'". It's not inaccurate, but all it's actually meant to convey is "It's a heist movie with trippy visuals." If you go into the theater expecting either of those movies, you're probably going to be a little bit confused.
It's off-putting that bands can create content but regular users? Not so much.
It's odd that I can tell people I'm going to a Cold Play concert (somehow) but I can't post pictures from that event afterwards.
But then .. I don't expect Ping to remain in this same place for very long.
Apple has a habit of releasing simple, feature complete products at 1.0 and then only adding additional stuff later when they can guarantee a first-rate user experience (eg, the App Store, cut and paste on the iPhone, printing on the iPad, etc).
So their one-point-ohs have the pundits and tech journalists writing big "Huh? But it doesn't have ____!" articles, but then in six months or a year later ... it's a wholly different kind of experience.
One prediction nobody is talking about much: Since this is based, presumably, on Lala, I expect it to have some kind of streaming service soon.
This also has the side benefit of introducing users to these things in gradual baby steps.
Apple would, of course, have to work out some arrangement with the ticket conglomerates; considering the potential market I cannot imagine this would be much of a barrier.
Imagine opening iTunes and being informed of the upcoming concerts in your area based on your listening preferences, or your friends' preferences, or even being notified that your friend is attending a concert and, hey, want to buy a ticket?
In my eye, a ticket buying feature like this would be the most game changing in the long run.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
(running on windows, one might add)
Printing out ugly error messages complete with file system paths in html is definitely a pants-dropping kind of move.
How is that embarrassing?
Sorry! There was an error: There is no folder or object database named "stories.root" in the folder "C:\Program Files\OPML\Guest Databases\www\".
The error was detected by OPML Editor v0.73 in mainResponder.respond. Webmaster: . Time: Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:14:45 GMT.The reason you got the error message from the OPML Editor is that it was running on port 80 while Apache was offline. As soon as Apache was running, it reverted to its normal non-80 port.
"The activity in this profile is private. If you would like to see more, request to follow"
Nice.
Oh and another one, if you go to "People", you get "You are not following anyone. Connect with Facebook, search for people..." Yet there is no visible way to actually connect with Facebook. There was a button last night, it's gone today.
Also, if you want to add artists to your Ping profile, they better sell their stuff on the iTunes store, otherwise they don't show up in search results.
So far every comment I've seen on the stuff artists are posting is spam--"Get a free iPhone from..." over and over.
I understand that this is newly released software, but seriously.
I don't see what's wrong with that, it's the defacto way Twitter works. Fact is that beyond a small group of influencers nobody gives a crap what anyone is saying on Twitter. On Ping those people that are the influencers are going to be the bands. There was an article on here a few days ago where a guy came to the conclusion that no one was paying attention to his Twittering and it was a waste of his efforts.
If, by "small group of influencers," you mean "my friends," then sure, I agree.
I believe there were at least thousands of users that had already enabled Ping last night. It's true that there aren't a lot of artists yet, but users are joining Ping pretty quickly. More artists will come in time, but they probably couldn't allow a ton of artists to join a secret social network that hadn't been announced yet without it leaking out.
What I'm trying to figure out is how to sign up as an artist... A 4+ week wait time registering for iTunes Connect as an independent artist seems to be the only thing I can find, which is really bad if that's the case.
On another forum I frequent there are some fanatics calling iTunes 10 an "abomination" because of the new logo and slightly different colours.
It sorta reminds me of that episode of the Simpson where Homer covers for Patti and Selma with the cigarettes where they work (a government building). P&S's supervisor points an accusatory finger at Homer and says "You, sir, are worse than Hitler (for smoking in a government building)."
I guess it's a lesson in keeping perspective.
But back to Ping: it's early days. That doesn't seem to stop people from calling it both a success and a dismal failure. Geez people, it's been 24 hours. Give it time. It's going to take time for people to discover it and how they want to use it as well as if and how artists want to use this new medium.
I saw a tweet (sorry, NY Times, that's what it's called--in spite of your ornithological sensibilities) of something like "@myspace wins". Bit premature don't you think? Besides, the concept of Myspace winning at, well, anything these days is quite laughable.
Even the Kin got six weeks. Let's not rush to judgment.