Don't Ping Me

I'm not talking aobut the Ping golf clubs. If you want to Ping me with them, please do! I need a new driver! No, seriously.

As part of Stevie Jobs' Apple conference last week, he announced the launch of Ping through iTunes, a new social network to follow your favorite artists and friends, and to help customize the music that you might like based on what you & your friends have previously bought via iTunes.

Therein lies the problem for people like me - I don't buy my music on iTunes. Most of the time I'll buy the CD version, because if they're the same price, why not have a hard copy? They work the same. Apple chose to ignore your music unless it's got the Apple stamp of approval. I know why - the $$.

Apple wants to know what you've bought and encourage you to keep buying what they suggest which is (conveniently) through them. Makes sense from their perspective, but it annoys me. I typically don't like being told what I'm supposed to buy or do with my life. Especially when it's from big bad corporations. I like to decide for myself. Maybe that's a little brash, but it's honest.

The other thing is that Ping isn't really anything new. I can - and do - "follow" these artists on Twitter. Plus, they don't have a very real feel. I wrote in my last post about how celebrities on Twitter don't feel real. This doesn't either. It needs some more personal feel. Who's writing the posts for Weezer, U2, Pearl Jam etc? When it's dealing with bands there's more than one person's opinions. Obviously most bands only have one front man, but the other members are people too, right?

How can Apple make it real? I'm not sure, maybe let the artist's customize their page, not make it just a promotion of their music. If the band isn't personally contributing to the page, then don't waste our time. No one wants to hear them self promote. Apple won't let that happen, because they love being in control. They won't give it up. Absolutely not.

It's only been a week, so there's still plenty of time to recover, but I'm not confident I see the point of the network to make it worthwhile. If my friends don't buy music from Apple, then how is it any different than Twitter, except for Apple trying to force me to buy music from them?

You don't win this round Jobs.