1. Ping is the only legitimate music store with a social network for music attached. It will not be long before artists see the value in reaching out to their fan base at the Point-of Sale (POS). This is a powerful combination.

2. Apple customers like Apple’s way of doing things. Do not discount the power of brand loyalty. Apple customers like the seamless integration of Apple products and services with each-other. Apple is a social statement for many people; similar to being vegetarian or driving a hybrid car.

Remember, sameness attracts. There is a like-mindedness of Apple users that transcends the form or function of the product itself.

When you consider how people find music, Ping is actually a very natural extension of personal music discovery. For instance, you have a friend that you consider to be cool/hip or just has good taste in music. You are interested in what music they’re listening to. Ping let’s you find out. Since when do you know what your friends are buying?

This is a game changer, especially for young kids that are so interested in what their friends and the “cool” kids are doing. The coolest music player has been the iPod since it was born in Apple’s labs. The “cool factor” is the market driver for products in this price range. A a dedicated portable game device may actually play games better than an iPod, but it is not as “cool.” Ping is integrated into this “cool” device.

Like trending topics in Twitter, you will have Ping song trends. This will be very desirable to record labels looking to get traction on new single sales without spending considerable sums of money on traditional advertising and marketing. Some artist will sell huge amounts of downloads without ever having a traditional campaign. You won’t even know their name and they will have a legitimate hit song. So finally the Internet promise of a single “going viral” is actually possible because the dialogue is married to the POS.

Ping has the ingredients of very well thought-out platform. I wouldn’t bet against this one. Apple will respond to any hiccups as usual and keep the features fairly simple (just the important ones). So far this has been a winning strategy for Apple since the return of Steve Jobs.

Apple has sold about 12 billion downloads and has 160 million iTunes users with registered credit cards for single click buying. Facebook, Twitter, Google nor anyone else can come close to those numbers. When you open an account with either of those services you do not have a need to give them a credit card.

So Facebook may be the 800-pound-gorilla on the block, but, it doesn’t have a credit card reader at every corner where artist can sell their product at the time of discovery or first-interest (an important time in the purchasing process).

Have you seen the new iPods? Have you? They day they’re released you can believe hundreds and thousands of gym users will conspicuously wear them high on the collar of their workout gear proudly like newly purchased jewelry. There will be many first-time Apple buyers attracted to the new iPods. These new converts will also discover Ping.

The smart money is on Ping.

Giovanni Wolfgang
Senior Analyst
ionRepublic

i dont think it will take off unless apple let us do this.

The key to uptake among indies will be integration with other social media platforms where an audience is already established and the accessibility of Ping’s artist sub-community. I imagine a pre-requisite for creating an artist profile is that you have some tracks for sale on iTunes. This already precludes live acts with no commercially available recording and unsigned artists who have only released digital downloads without a UPC code.

I dread to think the number of digital distribution ‘partners’ who will pop up over the next few months offering attractive looking deals to get indie content on iTunes while claiming the rights to your music or some other smallprint twist with their back hand…

Exhausting indeed.