Rillo's Really Riveting Read

So earlier today I heard the announcement about Ping, Apple’s new social network for music that’s integrated into iTunes. It sounds fantastic, you can follow all your favorite artists, see when they’re playing shows, listen to music and share music with your friends. I’ve actually been waiting for something like this for a while, MySpace has long been a graveyard of social networks where only the kids who don’t know better and MySpace whores hang out. It’s one redeeming factor has been how great MySpace Music is, and as much as I like it I’ve been waiting for a successor that would have an even better layout and allow me to keep track of all my favorite artists in one place. Along comes Ping, and with it my disappointment.

First off, where are all the bands?! I know what you’re thinking: “It’s new! Of course there aren’t a lot of bands!” Granted, I fully expect many more bands to be added  in the coming weeks. Of course I’m in a band, two according to my Ping profile. So I decided to create an page for Behead Thy King (I actually don’t have the email we use, but I was going to see how it was done), but for the life of me I can’t figure out how. I’m not even sure it’s possible! I can Google Behead Thy King, City Under Fire, Faust Avenue, local bands I actually care about following and find their MySpace pages immediately (More on that later). As of right now, it doesn’t look like there’s an easy way to get a band profile on Ping, definitely not for new bands trying to get their name out there, possibly not even for bands already signed without a huge hassle. Something noteworthy is that Behead Thy King and City Under Fire (others maybe, those are just the two I know) are on iTunes, so even then it’s a pain.

Next we have an equally important issue, there are so many essential features missing from Ping that make it impossible to seriously use. There’s no music player! Sorry Apple, I get that you want people buying from iTunes and maybe that was the reasoning here, but so long as you can only listen to 30 seconds of a song (which must be on iTunes already), there’s no point. MySpace allows 25 full tracks. The first album I shared on my Ping? I only shared it because I just discovered the band and I was listening to it right then, but I certainly wasn’t listening on Ping where the band doesn’t even have a profile and might not ever since they’re not megastars, I was listening on MySpace where the band decided I should be able to listen to the full album before I paid for it.

Let’s move on to some other features missing from Ping. There’s no customization for band pages (I think, I can’t check but all the current artist pages look the same). It’s not a huge deal, but I for one like to look at pretty pictures/a nice layout while I’m checking out a band. The current Ping layout is bland and not that great. I can look at pictures of a band on MySpace, I’m the kind of guy who likes to know each band member and what they look like, I want to see pictures of them rocking out, I want to see press photos, you name it. Again, not on Ping. Ping claims I can see when bands are playing shows, and the system to see this actually isn’t bad. From what I’ve heard however, this is possible through LiveNation, so what if a band isn’t selling tickets through LiveNation/Ticketmaster? I can’t check, but is it possible for a band to post their own shows? Maybe, maybe not. I can also find links to merch, official sites, twitters, etc on MySpace. There’s a blog, a highly customizable biography, you can comment on a band’s page or send them a message, you can do just about anything since they can just put it on their very customizable MySpace page!

Ping in it’s current state is lacking a lot of essential features that will hold it back from becoming a successful social network for music. I wish this wasn’t the case, I had high hopes when I first heard about it and I didn’t want to dislike it so much, but I just can’t ignore these issues in it’s current design.

-N8

I’m bored right now, that’s pretty much it. I get bored other times too. So for those extra bored moments when a short twitter message just won’t suffice, I can come on here and write about something, even if no one sees it. Sometimes I listen to a CD and think about how fantastic it is that I just have to tell the world, so when that happens I’ll probably mention it here.

I’m in the process of installing Windows 7 on a brand new hard drive right now, which means I just lost everything I had on the last one (especially since I effed up and broke it in the process of removing it). That includes my music naturally, some of which I had backed up from the last time I had to do this, but I lost a lot. I probably won’t start right away, but since I have a sneaking suspicion that my online misdoings were the cause of this system failure, I’m going to do my best to start buying albums I really like. This coupled with my desire to review various albums gave me the idea to review an album a week, and then go buy the physical copy of it to have. We’ll see how my follow through is, but it sounds like a good idea to me.

-Rillo