Ping Wants to be Your Music Social Network of Choice (But Isn’t Quite Ready)

Today, Apple released Version 10 of their digital-media-monopoly-wannabe iTunes, and along with it, launched their new music social networking app, Ping. Steve Jobs calls Ping Facebook plus Twitter for music; it allows you to follow your favorite artists as well as your friends, and get updates, music, and videos from them all on one Facebook-like feed. That feed, of course, is attached to the iTunes store for easy purchasing.

Bye-Bye MySpace?

At first glance, this seems like a MySpace killer. Easily the most powerful feature that MySpace retains, now that the largest portion of the social networking crowd has long since migrated to Facebook, is MySpace Music. Even though MySpace’s overall spotlight has considerably dimmed, MySpace Music is still one of the premiere places to build a social networking profile for your band, connect with your fans, and find more. It’s a place where I discovered a lot of my favorite bands and artists. If Apple were to build a more usable, more hip, more popular music tool, it could push MySpace even further into obscurity.

The good news is that isn’t likely to happen. Not yet, anyway.

A Rough First Impression

I downloaded Ping and set up an account just hours after iTunes 10 was released for download, but I was mostly disappointed with what I see so far. It must be said that Ping is somewhat of a wasteland just now. It’s understandable that the early adopter crowd should be small, but I’m not just talking about the user-base. There aren’t even that many artists to follow just yet.

Ping’s home page offers about a baker’s dozen of suggested artists for you to follow, ranging from Yo Yo Ma to Lady Gaga to U2. “You can do better than that,” I thought, and I started typing artists’ names into the search bar to see who I could find. Now, admittedly, I started searching for some of my favorite artists, who are not exactly huge in a mainstream way, but I also peppered in some Billboard Top 100 artists, and here were my results:

On Ping: Brittney Spears, Taylor Swift, Weezer, Seal, Justin Bieber

Not on Ping: Gnarles Barkley, Regina Spektor, Tom Waits, Sigur Ros, Silversun Pickups, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Usher, the Black Eyed Peas, Ke$ha, Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, Rise Against, and Phoenix.

I could follow every last artist on this list on Twitter, and most of them on Facebook, both places I already go to for a number of other purposes. So, what’s the draw of Ping, exactly?

Socializing or Selling?

If your uncle Fat Dude were a cynic, he might tell you that the only current purpose of Ping seems to be to help you find things to spend your money on in the iTunes store. And of course, we all know that is the ultimate purpose. But it could be a useful tool, too. Where can I search artists who are on Ping by popularity? Or genre? Where can I pull contacts from my Gmail account, or my Facebook friends? Why can’t I choose to share my currently playing song? Are you serious that I can’t “like” the Beatles because they’re not available on the iTunes Store? And does the lack of any “create an artist account on Ping” option mean that little guys who don’t sell on iTunes aren’t welcome either?

Some potential, But Not a Great Start.

I’ll admit it, I loved Ping as a concept. I wasn’t sure that I needed another social network, but I was excited for a great music social network that I could use to find some new artists, share music with my friends, and help some of my clients find new fans. Ping, unfortunately isn’t that great for any of those things yet. This could definitely be the worst product release that Apple has had in recent memory, worse than all of the first-gen iPod battery complaints. Can Apple take some constructive criticism and create a new must-visit network? Time will tell…

Have you checked out Ping yet? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Food For Thought: What Do You Offer?

Marketing guru Seth Godin offered some wise words recently on his blog regarding the nature of social networking to strengthen your Personal Brand Identity.

Seth says that if the social web had a mantra, it would be “Notice me:”

“So much time and effort is now put into finding followers, accumulating comments and generating controversy… all so that people will notice you.”

 Seth points out that getting noticed should be a means to an end, not the end itself. Keep this in mind as you accumulate your Facebook fans and your Twitter followers; now what are you going to do with them? What value are you going to offer to their lives to keep them coming back?

Read Seth’s full post,  and let me know what you’re going to do with all that attention.

“Notice Me.” — Seth’s Blog

What’s Your Brand Identity?

Okay, stop right there. Yeah. We know exactly what you’re thinking. “I am neither a soft drink, nor a cow. I’m just not feeling the whole branding thing..” Well, listen up, Spanky, because believe it or not, this is good stuff. When we find your brand identity and apply it to your online battle strategy, you’ll be turning the tide in your campaign for recognition. (Did that work? We’re not good at war analogies.)

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What is a Personal Brand?

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Everyone’s got a public face. No, really. Feel around right below your eyes. Feel that thing sticking out? And the thing below that? (Careful, it bites.)

Okay, seriously. Here’s the deal. Every time you send out your resume, or put up a personal website, or present a demo reel, or hand out a business card, you’re telling people who you are. It’s not just the content, but the presentation, the mode of delivery, the message you are sending to all five senses (well, hopefully your clients aren’t touching you too much), and the general impression you leave long after the content is put aside.

This may be something you are completely unaware of, but whether or not you believe in your Brand Identity, your Brand Identity believes in you.

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Why Should I Care?

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If you’re going to live in a cave, you shouldn’t. If you’re going to snatch up a corporate job and stay there for the next thirty years you’ll (probably) be okay without giving this much thought. But if you’re out there looking for a potential audience, a future boss, a new client, a ton of customers… here’s the thing no artist or entertainer should ever forget: You’re not just selling your product, or your services; you’re selling yourself, baby.

There’s two things that can go wrong with your Brand Identity, and either path leads to heartache:

1) Your Brand ≠ you: Take control of that Brand Identity, Chief, or it’s gonna take control of you.

This problem emerges when you do the legwork to get your Brand out there, but never really build a cohesive Brand in the first place

Symptoms: default templates, mismatched color schemes, unnecessary social networking, audience left unsure who you are.

Prognosis: Fair for an artist with very strongly displayed work. Not so great for an entertainer looking to build an online following and find employment.

2) Your Brand is nowhere to be found: Is that the sound of crickets?

This problem is a doozy: not only are you unsure what exactly your Brand Identity is, but you don’t even have a Brand to speak of.

Symptoms: You don’t appear in the Google results for your own name. Little to no online presence. A phone that doesn’t ring.

Prognosis: Plenty of time to pound the pavement, but patient may completely cease to exist online.

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How Do I Find My Brand Identity?

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This is the fun stuff. We’re no mathematicians here at Fat Dude, but we have found a very simple equation to identify a successful Brand Identity. It breaks down like this:

Your Self Image + Your Goals – Your Drunken Spring Break Photos = How Others View You x All The Time

Think about the celebrities who must successfully manage their Brands. People like Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, Ozzy Osbourne, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these are people who totally manage the public face they put forward. Here at Fat Dude, we do not suggest that you try to be anyone you are not (you perfect little snowflake, you), but we do suggest that you think long and hard about who you are and how you can apply that scintillating little personality of yours towards your career.

Once that self-image is defined, it’s a matter of making choices that give everything you touch a little of that same personality.

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How Do I Get My Brand Identity Out There?

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Okay, kids. We live in a world where Web 2.0 has been fully adopted (and co-opted?) by the corporate world. It’s the suit-and-tie types who we have to thank for terms like “Online Identity Management,” “Online Reputation Management,” and “Social Media Optimization.” We’re not really fans of the long, complicated language here at Fat Dude, so we simply call the process “Selling your Brand.”

If you pack up your Brand in your spiffy little Brand-mobile, and head out into the big, digital world, there are endless places to hawk your wares. Should you spend all your marketing time on Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? A blog? A podcast? A Flickr account? And how much time should you spend, anyway? And how often?

That’s where your favorite uncle, Fat Dude, comes into play. We believe everyone has a unique Brand Identity that can ultimately lead to success, without leading to loss of sleep and an empty wallet. We’d love to find the solution that’s right for you. Drop us a line.

(Reposted from the original here)

Cookie Cutters Suck

Listen, we’re hardly snobs at Fat Dude. We love junk food. We’ve never owned a piece of designer clothing. We are even known to watch a bit of reality television (Every network TV show should include a Wade Robson dance routine… just sayin’). But there’s one thing we don’t get; the cookie-cutter, mass-produced, couldn’t-have-less-freaking-personality website template. read more