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Ping Could Be Apple's Social Networking Backdoor?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-don't-think-it's-a-secret dept.

rsmiller510 writes "Could Apple's announcement about Ping, a music-based social network be Apple's social networking trojan horse? Facebook might want to be concerned." Of course it is. Update: 09/02 19:26 GMT by T : Jamie points out this post on Daring Fireball, according to which Steve Jobs blames the non-integration on "onerous terms" suggested by Facebook.

12 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Ping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ping www.apple.com
    PING e3191.c.akamaiedge.net (184.84.45.15): 56 data bytes
    64 bytes from 184.84.45.15: icmp_seq=0 ttl=53 time=31.528 ms

    1. Re:Ping by node+3 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, because words can have only one meaning and no more. They especially can't be used for products or company names.

      Word, Tux, Oracle, Excel, Sun, Bing, Java, Gnome, Yahoo...

      Wow, Apple is sure going to confuse people with this!

  2. Eh... by Pojut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm just waiting to hear borked adoption rate numbers...it is integrated into iTunes 10, after all. Internet Explorer & Windows, anyone?

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  3. Is It Only Through iTMS Application? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because when I look for a portal to Ping it seems they want me to download and install iTunes. Unless they intend to eventually make it accessible through a browser, I could see this being a bit of a problem for more than a few people. Great, you've got my credit card number if I bought something through iTMS but do you really think I'm going to wake up that memory and resource hog on my Windows partition just to get to a social networking site when I can hit Facebook through Linux or (nearly) any mobile device? I might be a small minority but that's not for me.

    Looks to be just more bloat on an already bloated piece of software. The least they could do is modularize iTunes so that if I click a box on install I can make it so that the application is just a way to put music onto an iPod. I am sick and tired of the video and TV stuff forcing me to put Quicktime on my machine!

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Is It Only Through iTMS Application? by noidentity · · Score: 5, Funny

      Looks to be just more bloat on an already bloated piece of software. The least they could do is modularize iTunes so that if I click a box on install I can make it so that the application is just a way to put music onto an iPod. I am sick and tired of the video and TV stuff forcing me to put Quicktime on my machine!

      Yep, leave it to Apple to make the simple ping command all bloated and require QuickTime, etc.

    2. Re:Is It Only Through iTMS Application? by Haffner · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think Apple's major mistake is tying EVERYTHING to iTunes. Honestly, iTunes integration tends to be one of the things they do worst. I have a core i7 with 8GB RAM on a win7 machine and iTunes STILL lags, is unresponsive, and even display details get cropped (and can't be fixed). Syncing for iDevices is so bad that I only sync my iPhone (great device other than the iTunes element, imo) every 2-3 months or so, because I hate the sync process so much.

      --
      "Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
    3. Re:Is It Only Through iTMS Application? by Tharsman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because when I look for a portal to Ping it seems they want me to download and install iTunes. Unless they intend to eventually make it accessible through a browser, I could see this being a bit of a problem for more than a few people. Great, you've got my credit card number if I bought something through iTMS but do you really think I'm going to wake up that memory and resource hog on my Windows partition just to get to a social networking site when I can hit Facebook through Linux or (nearly) any mobile device? I might be a small minority but that's not for me. Looks to be just more bloat on an already bloated piece of software. The least they could do is modularize iTunes so that if I click a box on install I can make it so that the application is just a way to put music onto an iPod. I am sick and tired of the video and TV stuff forcing me to put Quicktime on my machine!

      You miss the point of this, well the entire article did. Ping is not there primarily to become a Facebook competitor or alternative. It's there to help highlight music sales. It's there to tell you what music your friends like, and what music your favorite artists like. Artists may treat it as a social page only to advertise their products, just as they do now in Facebook.

      As far as Apple's goals are concerned, they don't care you using the tool if you are not going to be buying music. Note it does not only require you to have iTunes installed, it also requires you to have an iTunes Store account (even if it has no credit card attached.) It's all about selling.

      In a way i sort of wish they extended it's functionality for app developers and book authors too.

    4. Re:Is It Only Through iTMS Application? by RivenAleem · · Score: 5, Funny

      "It's Turtlenecks all the way down"

  4. social shopping yes - social network no by theonlyholle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem is that all it is is a social shopping network. And of course it's a "social shopping at the iTunes store" network, so it's very, very limited. I personally think that Apple narrowed the scope of their network too much (you can't even post a link to a live video on YouTube of a song you just bought - or rather, you can but it will show up as text only with no way to click or copy&paste it) and most users will be bored by it very quickly and just ignore it. Even if Apple expands it later, a reputation once ruined is hard to improve...

  5. Last.fm anyone? by MareLooke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would I want to use this over Last.fm which doesn't lock me into an application, is accessible from my webbrowser and has plugins for about every media player around?

    It arguably doesn't provide competition to Facebook aiming at a different audience altogether, but to me, judging from the article, it seems to be swimming in much the same waters as Apple's Ping.

  6. I suspect that ping is going to be by crovira · · Score: 5, Interesting

    strictly about music discovery and band discovery.

    Steve Jobs is amazingly (obsessively? :-) focused on making up for what the record companies gave up on in the nineties, promotion.

    Now that he's in a great position of power in the music industry, look for him to use "ping" to make an end-run around those same record companies which are run by accountants who treat artists and performers worse than livestock.

    In return he gets to listen to great bands. (Remember, Apple in the seventies used to host music events.)

    --
    MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
  7. I wonder.... by h2okies · · Score: 5, Insightful

    c:\>ping www.apple.com

    Pinging www.apple.com [96.16.93.15] with 32 bytes
    Request timed out. No Linux client
    Request timed out. No mobile client
    Request timed out. No universal browser access
    Request timed out. Forced use of 80MB client software

    Ping statistics for 96.16.93.15:
            Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% fail)

    yeah thats what i thought...

    --
    Beware the Lollipop of Mediocrity, Lick it once and you suck forever.