Ping. You know, Ping, a social network for music that seems oddly out of place in iTunes?
At the time of its launch, Ping was described by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as, “Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes.” “But it’s not Facebook, it’s not Twitter, “it’s a social network all about music. Whatever it is, it is odd and to be honest, I haven’t used it much.
That may change following an update to Apple’s iTunes Store terms and conditions. According to MacRumors.com, “The new terms and conditions, which customers must agree to before proceeding with new purchases or downloads, mention a feature called “Ping Sidebar” that appears to be related to the serving of recommendations based on a user’s activity in their iTunes library.”
The exact text of the terms and conditions are as follows:
“We have changed the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions to provide you with notice that if you have opted in to the Ping social network and use the new Ping Sidebar, iTunes will send information to Apple about the content you select in your iTunes library in order to provide you with Ping personal recommendations. If you do not want iTunes to send this information to Apple, you may hide the Ping Sidebar or opt out of Ping.”
Further, the changes may now result in a suggested follower list (oddly enough like Twitter and Facebook, but remember Facebook and Twitter Ping is not), concerts you may be interested in attending and products you may want to purchase.
The new “Ping Sidebar” is apparently not yet visible in iTunes, but it will be interesting to see what it looks like and how it functions once it is.
Are you an active Ping user? Why/why not? What features would make you more likely to use the service?
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