Social Media

2 Months After Launch iTunes Ping Has Authorized Only 2000 Artists

image from cdn.erictric.com An email sent to iTunes users this morning touted its Ping music social network which "lets you follow your favorite artists and friends to discover the music they're talking about, listening to, and downloading." Unfortunately many independent artists are still left out of the conversation. That same email from Apple stated that just over 2000 artists were on Ping. This low level of artist participation is not, however, usually by choice.



Ping claims millions of user and is growing, but despite the best efforts of digital distributors including Tunecore and CD Baby who serve indie and d.i.y. musicians, PING's required manual approval process appears to have slowed the growth of the artist community.

At launch am Apple spokesperson told Hyepbot that "artist profiles were by invitation only, "but we'll keep adding more and more."   But bands do have another, if less attractive option. "Any iTunes user can create a profile on Ping, artist or otherwise," reminded Apple.

Bruce Houghton on 11/04/2010 in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (11)
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11 Comments

  1. I think any lack of artists up there is due to indie artists not getting on the ball. We did it as soon as Tunecore made the announcement and the process was VERY easy – took maybe 30 minutes to get setup, including the time spent on uploading a photo and putting in the bio for the artist.
    I wouldn’t blame it on the process.

  2. @Kcrusher. not true. i was on tunecore day one about this. and had to follow up with them a week later.. however no follow up from tunecore no follow through from tunecore. no communication. not a slam against tunecore per se, but apple poo’ed the bed on this launch. and tunecore’s lack of communication is not helping.

  4. I asked CdBaby to expedite my Apple Ping Artist Profile two days ago. They said it would take a few months. However, it only took 2 days! I’m all set up.

  6. Hey folks
    We got our Ping profile via TuneCore. It was really quick and easy to set up.
    http://bit.ly/c3ceZo
    Can’t believe there are only 2,000 artists on Ping though!
    As for Ping itself, well, it’s not very social is it?
    Apple wants to increase music sales with Ping but they’re going to have to open up to the outside world if they want to make it really social.
    “Posts should not include advertisements or links to sites outside of iTunes.”
    You’re not even allowed to put a link to your website in the about section of your profile.
    “URLs should not be included in the About section of your artist profile. This includes official artist website URLs.”
    What would be really interesting though, is if Apple could provide some data on whether Ping profiles actually increase sales. I mean, if there was a way to track whether people went directly to an album in the iTunes Music Store and purchased it, or whether they got their through Ping, we could measure its usefulness.
    My feeling is that Ping could be a really powerful tool, that could help artists increase their sales within iTunes, but Apple needs to make it compelling for people and artists to spend time in Ping and I don’t see that happening in its current form.
    Time will tell. In the meantime, we’ll be posting videos and pictures every now and then to keep the profile alive. The good news is that we don’t have to spend as much time on Myspace anymore, so there’s a bit of spare time available for Ping!
    Cheers,
    Andy

  7. I am happy to say that we’ve gotten roughly about 80 of our roster artists approved since its inception. We’ve created a simple easy way to not only create Ping accounts for our artists but also give them tips to help market & promote their Ping accounts.
    Kevin Rivers
    CEO, Venzo Music (VMG)
    http://vmg.venzodigital.com

  8. I followed the Mashable posts about this from the get go. I saw a CD Baby post on facebook, that is who we currently use for digital distro. and after I sent them the email w/ the info. required, it didn’t take long at all, got the link to my profile from I-tunes and set it up. No biggie. I too think it is laziness on the artists part. Or maybe, lack of interest? Interesting numbers on this post…

  9. That’s surprising figures from our point of view. We at Yozik opened up more than 100 Artist profiles in Ping since its release, and we certainly don’t have 5% of market share ! http://blog.yozik.com
    About Ping itself we’re note sure of its social power and interest right now, but we often have been surprised in the past by Apple in their ability to push new tools to the Apple Ecosystem users, especially in music.

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