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: