Music 3.0 Music Industry Blog: iTunes 10

Showing posts with label iTunes 10. Show all posts

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Ping For Artists By Invitation Only

While yesterday's announcement of iTunes Ping seemed like a boon to artists and bands, now comes word that there's no way to create an artist profile on the network. When Apple was asked about the process, a spokesman responded that artist profiles are only available on an "invitation-only" basis. This is a giant bummer for most bands that could really make use of this new social network.

The same spokesman points out that any iTunes user, be it person or band, can create a profile, but that doesn't help the artist much if he can't push content to the fans.

That being said, Tunecore stated today that it's working with Apple to get all of their bands and artists signed up in the near future. Stay tuned.

Another disappointment is the fact that Ping only displays the albums that your friends have purchased and not the albums that they're currently listening to. This would not only help in music discovery but be a boon in data measurement for any band or artist. Let's hope that Apple implements this feature soon.

One of the cool things that Ping does do is provide a Facebook-like news feed that shows a recent activity stream from the people that you follow. Artists will be able to post updates to this news stream, which then will be directly sent to fans. This is very cool and a potentially big deal.

Clearly Ping is a work in progress and doesn't meet many of our initial expectations. That being said, it's only been online for two days, so expect the kinks and bugs to be worked out eventually.

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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

6 Reasons Why iTunes Ping Is So Important

Steve Jobs and Apple has done it again yesterday with the introduction of iTunes 10, which now contains the music social network Ping.

What is Ping? Jobs explained it this way, "It's like Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes." Although Apple is promoting Ping as a music discovery platform where artists and fans can interact, it's a lot more strategic than that. Until now Apple has mastered technology and content, but Ping gives them the one piece that they never had before - people, the most important of them all.

But Ping will be very significant for artists and bands too. Here's how:

1) There are already 160 million iTunes users. That doesn't mean that they'll all use Ping, but it provide a huge base of people already on the network.

2) iTunes has a direct connection to your content that other social networks don't have. This should make an impulse buy easier.

3) Ping is about all music, unlike other social networks (sorry MySpace, you don't count anymore). At least in the beginning, there won't be any other distractions.

4) iTunes users consume content. They're used to buying, and they already have credit cards on file.

5) Ping is about music discovery. Discovery is still the Holy Grail of the music industry. Ping provides discovery on your own, discovery through friends, and discovery from other fans, and anything to help people find your music is a good thing.

6) Ping has a direct connection to buying tickets to gigs. With their database of over 17,000 shows and concerts (provided by LiveNation, by the way), it'll make it easier for a fan to purchase a ticket without ever leaving the network.

There's also a lot to be said for Apple's traditional ease-of-use, that could play a part in the development of Ping into something larger than intended.

Look for an announcement soon of how you can claim your artist page on Ping (check Lady Gaga's artist page out as an example). Then be sure to do it right away. Although it may be too early to tell, there doesn't seem to be a downside, unless you like being undiscovered, of course.