Apple and Facebook continue to pong over Ping

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Facebook CTO Bret Taylor is "very confident" Facebook and Apple will be able to come to terms on integrating Apple's social music network with Facebook's social people network.

Ping launched with Facebook Connect so you could more easily find your friends, but the service was blocked by Facebook and then pulled by Apple, with rumors following the two had been going back and forth over a deal for up to 18 months and Steve Jobs complaining Facebook wanted "onerous" terms.

While Apple improved Ping with iTunes 10.0.1's inclusion of a sidebar and the ability to Ping music you already owned from within iTunes, the service is still off to a rocky start. It remains inaccessible from a web browser when you're away from your desktop iTunes and don't have an iPhone with you (blasphemy, but it could happen), and otherwise still feels like a work in progress.

So here's the question: would heavy Facebook integration make you want to use Ping more?

[Business Insider]

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

10 Comments
  • Yes, duh.
  • Of course. With 500 million users I blogged this morning that if Facebook Connect had been there from Day 1 Ping would be well over 10 million users and probably more. My guess is Ping only has about 2.5 million and the vast majority are like me that took a peek and haven't been back for weeks. Facebook is the only way I will ever give Ping another try, but IMO don't believe Bret Taylor. If it was going to happen it would have happened already.
  • No. There is nothing Apple could do to give me any interest in Ping. It shouldn't exist, period.
  • Importing Facebook friends (or Gmail contacts) is the ONLY way I'm going to have any friends on Ping. They need to get that hammered out for this thing to have any chance of succeeding, IMO.
  • I signed up for ping, but never found a use for it. Maybe if ping was on facebook it would remind me I have a ping account lol
  • Lame title
  • Finally a company that doesn't roll-over for Apple when they try to push something out to the public BEFORE sealing terms.
  • Ping is pointless, i have no friends, can only follow artists and get no relevant information, get rid of it, itunes is already bogged down with too much stuff.
  • Maybe... but you'd still really have to sell me on it.
  • http://forum.mic-computer.ch/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=19613