It just goes to show how accomplished a salesman Steve Jobs is with his introduction of Apple’s iTunes-based social music network, Ping, this past Wednesday. From the way Jobs presented the service, many people felt Ping was the future of music consumption and interaction, calling it a “Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, <insert internet juggernaut here> Killer.” In fact, I believe my initial reaction during the presentation could be paraphrased as “gave me an erection.”

It turns out that all anyone got out of Ping so far was a severe case of blue balls.

If you’re a music fan and you’re wondering if Ping is worth your time, it’s not. You’re much better off with Pandora or last.fm right now. They offer music discovery options that make Ping look like BP of music sites. Don’t bother signing up if you don’t have an iTunes account. If you are already signed up, I guess it couldn’t hurt to opt in to reserve a name/profile just in case Apple improves the service, but no one would blame you if you didn’t care.

In it’s current incarnation, Ping is utterly useless for music consumers and here are ten reasons why:

1. It doesn’t help you discover music in a meaningful way.

According to Apple’s own page for Ping, music discovery is the chief goal of the service. If that’s the case, why are there so few opportunities to discover music?

The first thing your eyes gravitate on the Ping welcome page is a section Apple calls “Artists We Recommend You Follow.” Great, new musical artists to discover! Then you realize that the artists “recommended” are some combination of 50 Cent, U2, Lady Gaga, Diddy, Daddy Yankee, and Keith Urban. By now, if you haven’t realized that this section is just a list of major label artists populated by a iTunes content manager and not actually personalized to you, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

It doesn’t get any better when looking through the profiles themselves. Artists or friends alike, the only components of music discovery on a profile are a static ten song/album list and a ten song/album chart generated from the top purchases of people you “follow.” If we drill in a little further, that list of ten musical selections on your profile is either done automatically through scraping your previous purchases or manually. I think it would be safe to say that automatically picking out ten of your previous purchases is not the best way to represent your musical tastes or discover others’. The best thing to do right now is manually pick out ten of your favorites, but it can be time consuming to update and with the small userbase, there’s no incentive to do so unless you like the flashbacks to picking out your “top friends” on Myspace years ago.

Let’s say you manage to find a cool friend or artist and want to listen to their recommended list of ten. You can’t even listen to complete songs! The best you can do is listen to a 30 second preview. Can you name a time when a 30 second preview has ever been a good way to discover music?

Where’s the dynamic list of songs someone’s listened to over the course of the last year (last.fm)? Where’s the suggested artists or songs based off of what you like (Pandora)? Where’s the ability to listen to actual music?

2. It only works with songs sold in the iTunes store.

If you want to use any of the “social” features of ping, such as “liking” or commenting on a piece of music, it has to be done within the limitations of music in the iTunes store. That cool unsigned artist you’ve been listening to on repeat? If they aren’t on iTunes they may as well not exist. Oh, the same goes for The Beatles, AC/DC, or any other artist that refuses to sell their wares on iTunes. I bet those guys were nobodies anyway.

Let’s take this one step further. How many people do you know purchased their entire music collection on the iTunes store? I don’t know about you, but I barely know anyone who’s bought more than a handful of tracks lifetime on the iTunes store. These are what most Ping profiles are going to be populated with: handfuls of novelty singles.

Sounds like a great way to discover new music, huh?

3. It requires client software.

Despite the huge install base of iTunes across the globe, it’s still a fraction of music lovers with internet access. Without a browser-based implementation of Ping, the growth potential of the network will be severely stunted. Let’s also not forget that it’s a pain in the ass to share links to profiles or content when an external application is required to view them.

I own multiple Apple products and even I find iTunes a necessary evil to transfer content to them. Having to run a separate piece of software just to access a website is both insulting to its users and a crippling annoyance.

Sure, you can argue that it’s a business decision by Apple to get people to use their products. But a social network is not an iPhone 4. It’s only as useful as the people using it. And it certainly isn’t doing any favors for me or many of the people already “in the Apple family.”

4. It’s already full of spam and noise.

Within a day after its launch, I was already seeing multiple spam accounts commenting on artist pages and featured profiles with links to “free iPhone 4! click here!!!.” Not exactly the scintillating music discussion I was looking for.

Now, let’s give Apple the benefit of the doubt and say that they’ll figure out how to filter out the spam effectively. There’s still the problem of profile noise.

Right now, every piece of activity on the site constitutes its own “post” on your profile. So whether you follow someone, like a song, purchase an album, write a comment or review, it’s all jumbled together into one cluster of spam. There’s no easy way to separate out the important activities (writing a detailed comment) from the mundane (following 134 individual bands). Why bother adding to a conversation if it’s just going to be buried under an avalanche of irrelevancy?

5. There’s nothing to do on the service.

Seriously, there’s nothing to do right now on Ping once you’ve set up your profile. Since listening to or discovering music isn’t in the cards, what about starting a conversation about it?

You could, but it’s a bit kludgy. You can’t make a post or a comment without doing it from a piece of content being sold on the iTunes store. You can’t post pictures or video from that time you met limp bizkit, nor can you write up a concert review of that great Staind show in Biloxi last night. Well, I guess you could write a comment under the iTunes page for “Outside”, but it’d be akin to writing your memoirs as a Youtube comment. In other words, not possible.

I suppose you could put down that you’re attending an upcoming show, but whats the point? There’s no incentive to do so other than to notify the world that you could be robbed more easily that night.

Where’s the interesting stuff like shared playlists? Hell, just include that one feature and you already have enough music discovery/sharing activity to warrant signing up for the service!

6. It’s a restrictive way for artists to interact with fans.

Artist Profiles are a little more useful than “normal” profiles in that they can post videos, pictures, and text without referencing a potential iTunes sale. However, other than posting content and a listing of upcoming tour dates, they’re not much better than a normal profile. Artist Profiles are still limited by the same spam and feed noise pitfalls in engaging with their fans.

In fact, once the initial hubbub of Ping dies down, I can’t think of a good reason why a band would want to regularly update its Ping profile once it’s up. Without a way to import content in from other outlets, I can’t see bands devoting the resources to provide original content on Ping when they could do it so much better on Facebook, Twitter, their own sites, or even Myspace.

7. It does nothing better than any other existing service.

Artists can disseminate media and tour dates better on their own website. Fans can interact with each other and their favorite artists better through twitter or tumblr. Music lovers can see what their friends are listening to better on last.fm. They can discover music through listening to full songs on Pandora or even FM radio. Concert goers can meet up through message boards, Facebook, or even last.fm with greater ease.

So tell me, what exactly is Ping good for, other than act as an interactive advertisement for $1.29 iTunes songs?

8. You can’t listen to full length songs.

This was touched upon in reason #1, but it bears repeating. Any “music discovery service” that doesn’t allow me to listen to complete songs is useless.

Utter deal-breaker.

9. It’s a pain in the ass to find your friends.

Right now you have to manually put in your friends’ email address to follow them on Ping. Initially, Facebook Connect was enabled, allowing you to import your Facebook friends with a couple of clicks. However, due to some dickswinging on the parts of both Apple and Facebook, that feature was disabled.

It’s 2010. I don’t a) know everyone’s email address by heart and b) have any desire to manually type in emails for any reason whatsoever.

10. It’s a pain in the ass to get set up as an artist.

Mashable brought this up in a recent post, but it makes sense why there’s so few artist pages up on Ping right now. Apple’s going through a laborious process by having artists apply for “artist profile pages” and going through each one approving them.

Come on.

We’re not even talking about curating Apps here. It’s going to take weeks if not months for Apple to get all of the artist profile applications sorted out. And for what? So your band can have a restricted social media network platform for a limited userbase?

Right now, radio stations only pay royalties to the original songwriters for the music that goes out over the air, not to whoever owns the actual performance of the song. (This is a key distinction because usually the record labels own the performance recording rights, not the artist.) If the labels have their way, radio will be forced by Congress to start paying up.

The interesting thing is that the compromise isn’t exactly between just radio and the record labels. Broadcasters want Congress to mandate consumer electronics manufacturers to include an FM radio chip in every portable device sold in the US.

(cue to a shot of tech companies going “whaaa?” with a surprised look)

“The backroom scheme of the [National Association of Broadcasters] and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity,” thundered CEA president Gary Shapiro. Such a move is “not in our national interest.”

“Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do.”

Now, it’s quite obvious with declining record sales and radio ratings that the NAB and RIAA are on sinking ships. I get that it’s a patently absurd mandate to place on tech firms who shouldn’t have to worry about bailing out the flailing radio and records industries.

But from a consumer perspective, would you really mind having access to an FM radio on your iPod or cell phone? I mean let’s put aside the fact that most terrestrial radio stations put out some poor product. (With a larger audience, maybe more programming chances could be taken. Playlists could widen. Songs could repeat less in a given time period.) Sometimes it’s just easier to put on a radio station and just start listening to music than it is to create a playlist on your own.

Say you’re bored waiting somewhere where there’s no cell reception. Chances are that you’ll still get FM radio reception at the least. It’s old technology, but it’s still probably more reliable than AT&T’s network. Entertainment problem solved.

Of course, this all goes out the window if our iPods and cell phones are suddenly $20 more to buy. But how much can an FM tuner chip cost these days?

All things being equal as a consumer, I feel that it’s a “why not” option for mobile devices. I haven’t had a portable radio since high school. Sometimes I wish I had one, especially when there’s a ball game to listen to and I’m not home. As long as our devices look, function, and cost the same, sure, put an FM tuner in there. We got nothing to lose, right?

@irvingazoff: New TM full disclosure pricing! http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0D00448D1A496EA9?brand=&tm_link=tm_homeA_g7&hot_ticket_brand=home

Now that’s a little thin on explanation so here’s Irving shedding a little more light on the matter:

“Correct.  Since acts, promoters and venues are fighting full disclosure all-in pricing that consumers want, TM is unilaterally doing this.  Needless to say a major promoter has already written to us demanding we stop. Go ahead and print if you want Bob.   Thanks.  Irving”

Cool, so now we get to see how much show prices really are without having to go through the song and dance of pretending to buy a ticket right?

Not exactly.

While each event page now shows a price including “fees”, there’s no mention of the “order processing charge” that will get tacked onto your order once you actually get down to putting on your billing info. This charge is roughly around $4-$5. (In Irving’s Carrie Underwood link above, it’s $4)

But that’s not all.

I bought a pair of Arcade Fire tickets for the Los Angeles show last week and not only was there a $4.80 “order processing charge” for a pair of tickets, Ticketmaster was now having the gall to charge $4 for “standard mailing.”

[rant start]

That’s right, we’re now charged an absurd $4 to be mailed tickets via a 35 cent envelope (I know because I’m staring at a ticketmaster envelope postmark right now). The “free” standard mail delivery option used to be the only thing I could mollify myself with if I bought tickets for a show months in advance. Now I don’t even have the option to pay $2.50 for the privilege to print my own ticket. The cheapest option was a $3 fee to go to a Macy’s or some retail outlet and have them print out tickets for me.

Are you kidding me? $3 to make an out of the way trip to a retail outlet to have them print out something for me?

Mr. Azoff, go back and hide the fees from me until the end step if it’s going to end up costing me an extra $4 to buy a 35 cent postage stamp. What’s next, a $2.75 fee to send them a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope for them to mail my tickets?

[/end rant]

Don’t get me wrong, the idea of a “Full Disclosure Pricing” sounds swell to me as a consumer. I’d love to eyeball an event page and be able to figure out if I can afford to go or not without 5 minutes of fumbling with Captcha work. Perhaps this is how Ticketmaster should have done business from the beginning. Regardless, with the way Mr. Azoff talks about it, you’d think that Ticketmaster had unilaterally cut fees to the consumer by 75% or something equally revolutionary. Now wouldn’t that be something to get excited about.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. I do realize that Ticketmaster is walking a tightrope with event promoters, venues, and artists in terms of who gets paid what and how much. But please, if you’re going to advertise “Full Disclosure Pricing”, try to actually disclose the final price before trumpeting yourself as a hero of the consumer.

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In March, Billboard magazine reported that Amazon was asking music labels to give it the exclusive right to sell certain forthcoming songs for one day before they went on sale more widely. In exchange, Amazon promised to include those songs in a promotion called the “MP3 Daily Deal” on its Web site.

The magazine reported that representatives of Apple’s iTunes music service were asking the labels not to participate in Amazon’s promotion, adding that Apple punished those that did by withdrawing marketing support for those songs on iTunes.

First of all, I find it deliciously ironic that the record labels are now the victims of bullying.  Secondly, is anyone actually surprised by these tactics?  Maybe I’m just jaded, but when I worked in radio implicit threats were an acceptable tool in the arsenal for record promotions.

Record Label: “If you don’t play this record by <insert new band the label is trying to break>, don’t expect to get <multiplatnium selling artist>  for your summer festival show.”

Those words were never said explicitly, but the general idea was understood.  It also worked the other way:

Radio Station: “You gave <competing station across town> an exclusive interview with <large band>? Don’t expect to get airplay for <your next baby band>.”

Tit for tat business tactics may not be the nicest or most optimal solutions, but they’re human nature.  We get wronged; we want revenge.  New girlfriend sees you talking to another chick at the bar? DOGHOUSE.  The same thing is essentially going on here with Apple, Amazon, and the record labels.

Granted, those were bygone days in which both parties had leverage on each other.  It was a symbiotic relationship; a give and take among equal powers.  Now, it seems as if Apple has all of the power here.  The record labels are so desperate for iTunes’ short-term sales that they’ll acquiesce to these types of demands and whine to Mommy (the DoJ) about it.

At the end of the day, I think this is an irrelevant battle. Inquire and regulate all you want, but you can’t change human nature. On top of this, I don’t see digital a la carte sales being the music market of the future. We’re seeing consumer excitement shift more towards cloud/subscription/social services.

But that’s a discussion for another day.

I thought that terrible piece on how the Black Eyed Peas was the #1 reason to be excited about music was the most insulting thing the Rolling Stone had done to music lovers this decade.

I was wrong.

I received the above email earlier today.  Apparently, I forgot I had subscribed to The Rolling Stone (and it’s email newsletter) many years ago.  I can deal with the unwanted email; I probably should have double checked the newsletter preferences more closely.  But to squander a communication attempt with a former subscriber on this tripe?

Come on.

CNET reports that the Webcaster Settlement Act has passed the House of Representatives unanimously.  Only the Senate now stands in the way of internet radio broadcasters and business viability.

According to the article:

Webcasters are fighting for the right to negotiate with the music industry to reduce the royalty rates they must pay to stream music over the Web. Any deal must be approved by the federal government.

It’s sad that it’s even gotten to this point.  The revised royalty rates from last year that put webcasters into this situation in the first place were completely unreasonable.  Now they are fighting for the right to negotiate?  With the music industry?

Granted, one would assume that the record labels themselves would see the futility in forcing internet radio out of business and would negotiate reasonable deals if the bill passes.  However, why did they allow SoundExchange to enact such ridiculous rates in the first place?  The fact that any deal must be approved by the federal goverment adds unnecessary red tape to the process.

Unanimously passing the House is a good first step; it appears as though the bill will get enacted.  At the end of the day, though, it’s still a workable solution.  Just not a very elegant one.

Music social networking/blogging site, MOG, announced yesterday that legendary producer and Columbia Records executive, Rick Rubin will be joining its board of directors.  Seeing as how the site is financially backed by Sony BMG and Universal records, this does not come as much of a surprise.

According to Mog founder, David Hyman, Rubin’s role “…is taking a fairly active role in the development of MOG.”  He then goes on to imply that Rubin is giving input on “user interface and information architecture” for the site.

Hmmmm.

This sounds suspiciously vague enough to be a “hire a big name to our company to do nothing but look good in a press release” manuever.

Listen, I have nothing but respect and admiration for Rick Rubin the music producer.  Not so much for Rick Rubin the businessman or web architect.  He’s accomplished nothing ostensibly in those two areas that would merit his appointment to high level positions.  Bob Lefsetz had a great rant on Rick the businessman in one of his emails.  As to Rick the web architect?  Well let’s just say if his “information architcture” skills involve putting Google Adwords on the front page of his record label’s website, MOG is going to be fighting an uphill battle.

Read MOG’s Press Release

Not content with totally mishandling the music industry’s disastrous “transition” into the iPod age, Warner Music CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr., has started down the path of bungling yet another potential revenue stream.  With the recent explosion in popularity (and sales) of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it was only a matter of time before someone had to open their big mouth.  The churlish executive told Reuters:

The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small.

Now, to be fair, no specifics were given as to how much the record labels are actually getting paid for the use of their music recordings in the games.  It’s certainly possible that the game industry is not paying enough.  Let’s forget for a minute all the other components that make Guitar Hero/Rock Band successful (development costs, peripheral manufacturing, distribution, marketing, etc.) and play Ed’s game.  If I had to guess, I’d posit that the current cut for music in rhythm games is close, if not the same, as a digital download on iTunes.  Our pal Eddie must have seen this, and thought, “Hay! Activision is charging double the price of iTunes, but we’re only getting the same as El Jobso.  Let me talk to the press, they will surely be on our side!”

Sarcasm aside, Eduardo and the rest of the music industry really need to think before they speak.  Even if they are getting the shaft, it would be much more productive to solve the issue behind closed doors.  Coming out and complaining to the press in a haughty tone is not going to help their situation any.  To the contrary, it’ll just serve as blogger and message board fodder to further drag the music industry through the mud.

Not that the record labels really need any more help with that.

The Rock Radio reports that Metallica has decided on the pricing structure and SKUs of their upcoming new album, Death Magnetic.

The first package, called Digital Death Magnetic, will cost $24.99 and includes digital delivery of the album at midnight on its release date, downloads of two entire shows from this summer, almost two hours of exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, 250 exclusive photos, ringtones of riffs from the new album, access to exclusive contests and a $10 coupon toward merchandise or fan club membership at Metallica.com or MetClub.com.

The second package, Death Magnetic CD + Digital Death Magnetic, is $32.99. In addition to all the above items, it includes Death Magnetic on CD. The last package goes for $124.99 and includes all the items from the other two packages, plus a five-LP vinyl box set with five individual sleeves and a Mission: Metallica lithograph.

It looks like the band is taking a little bit out of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails’ playbooks by offering both a digital download and a very pricey premium edition of the music.  Sadly, Metallica is so blinded by the visions of moneyhats that it missed out on the most obvious tactic of offering a digital download in the first place – free (or at least cheap).

Sure, the Metallica superfans are going to shell out for the highest end premium product, but what about after that?  Do they really think a casual fan or a teenager discovering the band now is going to spend $24.95 on a download?  The band arguably hasn’t made any truly relevant music since 1991′s self-titled “Black” album.  I would argue that Death Magnetic‘s success isn’t exactly a guarantee, especially in today’s climate.  If they really wanted to take advantage of the current music market landscape, they would be looking for ways to expand their audience and fanbase, while also taking care of their core audience.

On a related note, the band debuted a couple of new songs while playing live at Ozzfest a couple days ago.  Check after the jump for a live recording of “Cyanide” off of Death Magnetic.

My initial impression? Better than St. Anger.  But that’s not really saying much, is it?