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.

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

I’ve invented a fun new game that you can play with your friends called Last FM Charades. I tried it out on some chums this New Years Eve after a few ales and it went down well. It’s best played with an iPhone 3G loaded up with the free Last FM app. It helps if you’re already familiar with the rules of Charades (although not knowing can add to the hilarity).

To start, simply create a new station on Last FM. We went for an 80’s theme. This worked well for us because although we grew up in the era of big hair, our collective musical memory had enough gaps to keep it fresh, and the cheesy nostalgia added to the entertainment.

Then take it in turns to take the stage with the iPhone, play the next track (without letting anyone else see the track details), and proceed to act out the title of the song. If you successfully mime it before the title is sung, you can pass to the next person. If the title is sung on the iPhone before the others guess, or they just guess it straight away from the first few notes, you have to stay on and do the next track until you’re successful.

You can play this with an ordinary iPod and dock set to shuffle, although the owner will always have a slightly unfair advantage and you’re limited to the music on that iPod.

I’ll never forget Lucy’s impression of Paris for ‘The Paris Match’ by The Style Council…so next time you have friends round to your place, treat them to Last FM Charades and let me now how you get on!