Yesterday Apple announced the release of Ping, the new music-focused social media site. If you’ve ever purchased music on iTunes, ever purchased or registered an apple product or if you’ve ever downloaded an iPhone application, you have an Apple account. Sometimes you might even forget that this account exists, as I did until I signed up for Ping some few hours ago. I downloaded iTunes 10.0 and it was magically there. Ping is far from perfect, most notably because it hasn’t yet approved my profile picture and there’s not yet an easy way to add friends or contacts.

Apple’s business model has historically been providing computers at a higher-than-average price range that are reliable, easy to use, and attractive. Part of Apple’s competitive advantage was that having one of these products became a status symbol, something that millions of Apple fans are willing to pay a premium for. The iPod and iPhone have further reinforced the competitive advantage, with the business model shifting to provide attractive, higher-than-average priced, easy to use .mp3 players. The key factor that brings us to Ping, is that in order to use your iPod on your mac or pc, you need iTunes. ITunes understands some of your deepest and darkest desires such as when you listen to which music, what kinds of music you’re willing to pay for, what music you’ve purchased online and what music you’ll never listen to again. The Genius functionality in iTunes regularly sends Apple information on who and what you’re listening to (with your permission), and it both recommends new music based on your past purchases and it will also create a playlist based on a song.

If you’re in the mood to listen to a certain song, Genius will also scour through your music collection and pick out a selection of songs that will play seamlessly and that have the same beat and feeling. This Genius feature ensures that you’re listening mode doesn’t turn into “I can’t believe I own this music”.

With our increasing comfort with social networking, a social music system seems logical, reeking with MySpace influences. In the Apple keynote speech yesterday Jobs hinted in a slide that users would be able to integrate their Ping activity with Facebook. It apparently turns out that there will be no Facebook integration yet, and in the meanwhile users are left to find friends by name and/or e-mail (that’s so passé).

In terms of competitive advantage, Apple are strides ahead of the competition, integrating a music platform that everyone already uses with a logical place to interact with bands and musicians. In fact, it’s more logical a place than Facebook to interact with other fans and artists. Ping and iTunes are creating a unique environment by pulling more of people’s time into the Apple platforms, creating a stronger argument for them to be a primary host for all music and television content.

It will be interesting to see how the music platform evolves. Due to the fact that Apple’s revenue stream is derived from music and application sales unlike Facebook, whose revenue stream is advertising, there is a greater chance for fans and users to have a more organic and genuine experience. Being built into iTunes has its perks as well since users are already familiar with it and they already have it on their computers. Let’s also not forget that Apple reported having credit card information for over 124 million users in February of 2010, demonstrating the amount of trust and goodwill iTunes has already amassed.

If Apple and Facebook can agree on an integration deal allowing users to be connected to their Facebook friends in Ping, both will be further entrenched for success.

I’m always on the hunt for new music. It’s what fuels me. When I discover a new band I normally track down their MySpace page and check out their tunes. MySpace band pages let you listen to a few select tracks, although quite often the latest single is limited to only thirty seconds or so – pretty annoying.

But now I use Spotify. Lovely Spotify allows me to listen to all the tracks available by the artist, in their entirety, for free. What’s more it’s fast, uncluttered and very easy to use.

If Spotify can secure its future via subscription based mobile apps (most importantly that of the iPhone) it will not only challenge MySpace Music but other internet-radio services such as Last.fm, Blip.fm and Pandora. They’ll have to rely on their social networking attributes to stay in the game. More traditional niche internet-radio stations such as NME.com could also be affected and they’ll need to maximize their original content and new music credentials to retain listeners. The other potential loser in this is, of course, Apple’s iTunes – although a significant number of people will always want to own the music they listen too, rather than just subscribe.

I’ve always been a fan of MySpace, but if it’s to survive, I believe it needs to offer better integration with Twitter and Last.fm type services. This would help the pages achieve more repeat visits by making them a hub for everything related to a band. Improved design and a good clear out of the clutter that plagues the artists’ pages wouldn’t go amiss either. But the most pressing issues such as access to more music and shorter load times would vastly improve what is increasingly looking like a tired web format. MySpace Music could also do more to help break new bands through a ‘new music’ streaming service – now that’s something I’d listen to!

In a display of true Apple bravado, the crowds at WWDC 09 were treated to an inspiring display involving 20,000 of the most popular iPhone apps. When an app is downloaded it pulsates, creating a ripple effect over 20 Apple Cinema Displays. This real-time effect (albeit with a 5min delay) is designed to demonstrate the volume and frequency of app downloads across the world.

For me, it’s true value is as an art installation, rather than a mere display of technological prowess. Must be quite mesmerising to stand and watch it…

Check it out

With Steve Jobs off sick, Apple seems to have taken ’small is beautiful’ a bit too far.

Ever wanted to write your message in the sky so every one can see it?

Well now you can. A couple of Hollywood special effects guys have invented a machine that can pump out 4ft foam clouds in the shape of a company logo at the rate of one every 15 seconds.

Flogos (flying logos), are made up of helium filled soap bubbles that can travel 30 miles at up to 20,000ft before disappearing, according to the Flogo website.

Disney, Apple, Audi and Nike have already signed up and others have expressed interest. Looks like it’s only available in the US at the moment, but I’m sure it won’t be long until they take off here!