My Ping

Apple - this is what I want you to do with Ping:

1) Don’t make Ping into another traditional social network. I already use Facebook. I don’t need another one. 

2) Make Ping all about content discovery.  I am still having an awful time finding new music. Yes, I know you have genius playlists, but a lot of times it is just so impersonal and cold.  I just want to “follow” my favorite music artists and see what projects they are working on, or cool songs that they are recommending. (I don’t care what kind of music my friends are listening to - I use Facebook for this) 

3) Have more music artists debut new songs exclusively on Ping for a day or two.  I really enjoyed listening to the new Michael Jackson songs. It’s an excellent way to let fans listen and buy new music. 

4) Bring Ping to the iOS app store.  I want to “follow” my favorite iOS apps and app developers. Ping could be a great way for app developers to brand themselves. Imagine an app developer having a follower list of 25,000 iOS users on Ping. Talk about easy marketing.  I can already see myself following Angry Birds or Rovio Mobile and seeing what apps they recommend, if they got inspiration from other apps, or if they will be introducing Angry Birds updates. I can’t get this type of stuff from Twitter or Facebook. 

5) Please do all of this in 2011.  If you wait any longer, music artists and other content creators are only going to be strengthening their Twitter and Facebook presences. If I was a content creator, I would give iTunes and Ping (and all of those credit cards attached to Ping profiles) some attention. 

Thanks 

(P.S. Apple - I already know you are doing all of this, but just make believe I am the first one telling you)