Apple has tried their hand at many different types of software, hardware and technology over the years, but they’ve never really dabbled in the lucrative – but highly risky – world of social networking: until now. Speaking at a press conference in San Francisco this week, Steve Jobs revealed that Apple are to directly rival music discovery sites like Last.fm specifically targeted at the already massive iTunes userbase.
Previously iTunes has integrated some level of social features but has mostly been geared towards being a retail store and music player, and even basic social services like those seen on streaming music player Spotify have outdone Apple in this area, so it should be really interested to see if Apple can make some big waves.
Jobs has already started comparing it to the big players in the social networking world, naming it as “Facebook meets Twitter meets iTunes.” But also stating that rather than Facebook and Twitter, Ping will be “all about the music.”
Most social networks tend to find the market very difficult to break into, but with 160 million customers already using iTunes, there’s a fairly large amount of users that can take up the service. Of course, that logic hasn’t stopped Bing from remaining relatively unknown compared to Facebook despite 400 million registered users on Google, so time will tell.
Steve Jobs commented:
“With Ping you can follow your favourite artists and friends and join a worldwide conversation with music’s most passionate fans.”
iTunes will have a new rival this year as Sony has announced a new music service to rival Apple’s dominance.
Related posts:
- MySpace to push music features in social networking community Although MySpace is still a hugely popular social networking site in certain parts of the world, its appeal has been steadily slipping in the over...
- Facebook “Lite” Offers a Social Networking Alternative It’s only been ‘officially’ launched in the United States and India, but the ‘lite’ version of popular social media and networking site Facebook can also...
- 20% of All Online Advertisements are delivered Through Social Networking Sites A new study from comScore has found that a fifth of all online advertising viewed in America has been viewed for the world’s biggest social...
- French President Speaks Out Against Google Book Project US Search Engine Google has been attacked by the miniature President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, due to its plans to put much of the classic...
- Google announce Google Buzz: social media through Gmail | Kingpin-SEO Agency News Google might own the world’s most popular search engine and video site, but one area where the Mountain View company isn’t doing quite as well...
