Today I’m breaking two of my golden rules.

That first is “If you can’t say anything good, say nothing. The second is “say only good things in writing.” I’m acutely conscious of the number of supposedly private mails which have been posted on the net which are open to misinterpretation or devoid of the context, humour and nuance in which they were conceived. There, but for the grace of God, go I, you and anyone else in this hyper-connected, “mail first ask questions later” digital age.

Yet yesterday the disappointment at The Sound Horizon Towers was so palpable I felt compelled to put words in the ether. After weeks of build up to Apple’s significant announcement, we discovered on Tuesday that – yes – iTunes 10 had “gone social.”

So it was neither streaming, nor subscription, nor the expected cloud-based music service which was bolted onto iTunes. Instead, we got Ping, which Steve Jobs claims will massively unlock the social potential of the 160 million iTunes users.

This shows that the product genius that goes into Apple’s engineering and user experience dominance is lacking in understanding of even the basics of social media. I’m aware that Facebook was an original, and now strangely absent element of the launch, but it’s painfully absent right now and shows no sign of returning. This leaves us with e-mail as the only communication method.

Here’s what’s wrong with Ping as it stands sans SocNet, and how Apple can and should put it right in very short order.

Ping as a menu item, not a contextual feature
Ping sits as a standalone item in the menu, between iTunes Store and my purchased tracks. In short, I have to go to Ping rather than Ping coming to me as a result of my musical activity or my interaction with the music in iTunes 10.

Ping is a standalone feature, not integrated

Remedy: Ensure Ping is available at the track, album and artist level as a contextual menu item and as part of the track display info in my library, and even in the iTunes store. Give customers multiple, redundant ways of accessing the same info.

Ping in iTunes but nowhere else
We’ve always known that Apple is immune to the benefits of “Open,” whether it’s open innovation or opening up its proprietary environments or technologies. But a “closed” approach to social media can’t and won’t work.

Music is highly personal and individual, but music usage and listening also provides a huge element of social capital, which forms the basis of successful services such as LastFM. Being able to broadcast my current and historical listening into my other social media should be a hygiene factor for social music.

In short, people find music through other people, and find other people through music. Nothing about Ping allows me to either connect with friends through music or to find new music through my trusted filter network.

Social networks have become the enabling platforms – the audience and usage is on the networks and via the networks, not destination sites or products. They have earned their usage through allowing third party services access to these platforms.

Remedy: Allow iTunes to export and import playlist / playback info information to key social networks including Facebook and Twitter, and into lifestreaming environments.

Configuring profiles by genre

When setting up Ping I was asked to tick three boxes for “genres” I like. Even the most basic ethnographic studies or analysis of music listening behaviour shows that hardly anyone listens according to the byzantine classifications created by the physical music retail business to allow them to rack and range “product.”

It’s archaic, wrong, smacks of dinosaur label marketing practices and it’s like asking me which of my kids I would save from a burning house first. Turn it off, now.

Apart from that, what about the genres people are passionate about – dubstep, grime, thrashcore et al?

I am a name, not a genre

Remedy: Apple knows what’s in my collection or can do that with a simple permission. Why not sniff my tunes or look at my play count to see what I’m really playing, then connect me to my favourite artist feeds?

Launching without tastemakers

I admire Rick Rubin but he’s not the first person I would turn to. Bottom line, he’s not in my network of trusted filters. Yet he was the only person apart from a Santa Monica-based club DJ who was available for me to follow.

Remedy: Relaunch with influential tastemakers from old and new media who have the potential to be significant to music leaders and followers.

Launching with no acts

So I can follow U2 or Lady Gaga. Being eaten by a bear or a lion?? Come on. Or maybe Yo Yo Ma. I respect all of these performers but I don’t want them in my network.

I know iTunes is more mainstream and aimed at more passive consumers than the early adopting wired music and tech enthusiast. But to launch a service which has only a smattering of artists to follow is not worth the candle.

Remedy: Get to critical mass with artists to follow and open it up to users. Key learning from social networks and successful services is to let users take over.

Verdict: Apple has a reputation for not being first (remember the iPod wasn’t the first digital music player) but for doing it simply and in taking new products, services and behaviours through the early adopters and into the early majority.

Ping is coming late to the social music game but has failed to recognise the fundamental rule: set things up and let the users take over. It feels over-managed, bare and ultimately pointless.

At The Sound Horizon we believe that successful services make use of the three Cs: Content, Context and Community.

Hopefully they’ll roll out features we need and expect in coming iterations which play to the second C – the context, such as:
-real time playback information (what am I listening to right now)
-location based playback
-how it fits with my mood

and the third C, community
-how many of my friends / social network contacts are listening to the track
-whether there are others listening right now
-who near me is listening to this track

Maybe these features are a step too far for Apple’s early majority right now. But as a first step into the world of social music, Ping needs to live up to its punchy name.