Ping is Apple's effort of going social with a music-based social network. Ping the iTunes related social network was built to allow users to follow artists and friends and see what they were listening to. The service still does not have a tie-up with Facebook as yet. There however has been a lot of news lately that Apple and Facebook where in talks to get that done. Ping was launched without the Facebook integration and was not received well by critics and users alike. There has been a meeting however between Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg at Steve Jobs home and things might soon start turning in the right direction. iTunes ping will be hopeless without proper Facebook integration.
Artists have also had to struggle with creating a profile on ping. Some work needs to be done before Apple can make a foray into the world of Social Networking. ping however shows a lot of promise with allowing people to connect with friends and artists and see what they are listening to. This way users can find and share new music and and up and coming artists will have a new platform to share the music.
Ping also allows users to both post the music they're actually listening to and "like" other music that friends,colleagues, or random internet strangers are listening to. It's a simple tweak that's made easily accessible via a sidebar that pops up within iTunes whenever one starts rocking out to a song.
Ping aims to become the social network for music, however Ping is completely useless for songs that don't appear in iTunes' main repository of music
This is what Ping has to say for itself.
Now your music is more social. Join the conversation, and follow your favorite artists and find out what your friends are listening to with iTunes Ping.
Check out iTunes Ping now.