Twitter and Apple Team Up on Ping Integration

[MacRumors]

Screenshot of iTunes integration on Twitter.com
Twitter today announced new integration with Apple's "Ping" music-focused social networking service, allowing users to easily share music and convenient previewing and purchasing links.

Starting today Ping, iTunes' new social network for music, and Twitter are making it even easier for people to share music discoveries with their friends by putting Ping activity, song previews and links to purchase and download music from the iTunes Store right in their Tweets on Twitter.com.

The feature allows users to sign into Twitter from Ping, linking their accounts and allowing them to find people they already follow on Twitter who are also on Ping.

Once you've linked the accounts, whenever you Post, Like, Review, or tell your friends why you purchased a song or album on Ping, this activity will also be tweeted to your Twitter followers - complete with playable song previews and links to purchase and download music from iTunes.

Furthermore, those browsing Tweets sent via Ping on Twitter.com can click on the Tweet to see details on the song or album right on the page, complete with song previews in the 23 countries where Apple offers music via the iTunes Store.

Apple and Facebook have reportedly been in discussions about working together in some capacity, despite some early squabbles over Ping's apparently-unauthorized integration with Facebook Connect, a feature that was yanked within hours of Ping's debut in September. The two companies have apparently yet to strike a deal, however, to bring their services together in any form.

Article Link: Twitter and Apple Team Up on Ping Integration

 

[dlewis23]

This is probably a good idea.

 

[maviso5]

i like this idea..

 

[gleepskip]

This is great news. Twitter will never have the privacy concerns that Facebook has. I'm glad the Facebook integration has - thus far - not panned out.

 

[grmatt]

Ping just got WAAAAY more useful. If they can do the same with Facebook, I'm convinced it will be a success.

 

[The Phazer]

Is Ping not dead yet? I don't know anyone who spent more than 24 hours on it at launch.

Phazer

 

[spillproof]

Why even have Ping, just let iTunes publish to your Twitter? I'm glad that people like Ping and are finding it useful.

 

[Willis]

Ping needs social networks to embrace it. I'm glad Twitter got on board

 

[shk718]

Very smart Apple - if facebook doesn't want to play then go to twitter who does. Kind of stupid on facebooks part. Even if ping is small why turn down social interactions - isn't that their core business (after advertising) - unless they wanted a piece of apples music sales??

 

[AbblePC]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8B117)

Now tweets can be more entertainig once they include music previews.

I can see the rickroll tweets already...

 

[lethalOne]

So now I've linked my ping account to my twitter account... if I link my twitter account to my facebook account then I'm 50% linked to Facebook?

Pretty sure the only thing I'm missing is a way to suck my friends list into Ping now.

 

[benhollberg]

1) How many people actually use Ping?
2) How many people actually use the Twitter website? I have Twitter and never visit the website, using apps on my iPhone/iPad and on the MacBook Pro are so much better.

 

[bigrash]

Very smart Apple - if facebook doesn't want to play then go to twitter who does. Kind of stupid on facebooks part. Even if ping is small why turn down social interactions - isn't that their core business (after advertising) - unless they wanted a piece of apples music sales??

I totally agree. Don't know why facebook has been fighting with Apple about this.

 

[j-a-x]

This won't help me find people on Ping because I don't use Twitter.

 

[Greg McBride]

Good Concept…Bad Execution

Apple is trying to hop on the social train and steps like this are good. But, there are a couple of issues that I have.

• Why is it all or nothing? I don't want all of my Ping activity to be tweeted. It would be nice if I could choose what I do and to not want posted to Twitter.

• Why have they not implemented a URL shortener? The iTunes link takes up a large chunk of my 140 character limit. They could have developed their own custom short URL that would only take up about ten characters. That's pretty important on Twitter since the character count is very limited.

Despite those gripes, I'm actually glad to see that Apple is expanding their social strategy.

-Greg

 

[Mjmar]

Ping suddenly becomes relevant...

 

[ipedro]

Zuckerberg 1 - 1 Jobs

Getting the brick wall from Facebook certainly set back Ping but Facebook ain't the only player in town.

Ping was just missing a method to discover which of your friends were on it and a mainstream social partnership to get the word out. Facebook was the best way to do this, but Twitter equally fulfills those needs.

This puts Facebook in a position where they're looking at the next MySpace type independent musician network from the outside. Mark will be knocking on Steve's door soon enough.

 

[ChazUK]

Why have they not implemented a URL shortener? The iTunes link takes up a large chunk of my 140 character limit. They could have developed their own custom short URL that would only take up about ten characters. That's pretty important on Twitter since the character count is very limited.

They already (seem to*) own http://itun.es

That would be a great url shortener address!

*the url redirects to Apple.

 

[taxiapple]

As long as I can turn it off I don't care

I don't have a facebook or a twitter account.
I don't know what a tweet is.

I really could care less about what someone is listening to nor do I care to share what I am listening to.

As long as I can turn it off completely, others can ping as much as they want.

 

[ghostface147]

1) How many people actually use Ping?
2) How many people actually use the Twitter website? I have Twitter and never visit the website, using apps on my iPhone/iPad and on the MacBook Pro are so much better.

1. 14
2. Too many.

 

[goobot]

Yay, I like Twitter

 

[Mister Snitch]

This is great news. Twitter will never have the privacy concerns that Facebook has. I'm glad the Facebook integration has - thus far - not panned out.

Agree with all the commenters praising this move. It's brilliant strategy, too - puts a LOT of pressure on Facebook to work with Apple. As others here have noted - Apple now no longer needs FB to make Ping soar. Rather, FB clearly needs to get in on this before others, like Twitter, simply crowd them out.

Great for Twitter, too. They're sneaking into Facebook's territory, a bit, here. I am blown away by what a sharp move this is.

 

[Small White Car]

Ugh. My least favorite part about Twitter is all the auto-tweeting Apps.

Foursquare says I'm here!
Some game says I got this score!
My blog says I made a new post!

And now iTunes will be chiming in too. Enough already. I'm on Twitter to see what YOU'RE thinking...not what your computer is doing.

(That said, this is a terrific score for Apple. I can see why they did it.)

 

[SteveSparks]

If apple would compete directly with Facebook, I would jump ship. I'm getting more annoyed with Facebook everyday.

 

[rwilliams]

Ping suddenly becomes relevant...

Yep. It had to integrate with either Facebook or Twitter before it had any chance of being taken seriously or gaining traction. It will be interesting to see how much more usage Ping gets from this point forward.

Ugh. My least favorite part about Twitter is all the auto-tweeting Apps.

Foursquare says I'm here!
Some game says I got this score!
My blog says I made a new post!

And now iTunes will be chiming in too. Enough already. I'm on Twitter to see what YOU'RE thinking...not what your computer is doing.

(That said, this is a terrific score for Apple. I can see why they did it.)

I feel your pain, my man. You can turn it off in iTunes, but what they need is more granular control of what gets tweeted. Right now, it will tweet everything you do in iTunes, like the songs and albums you buy, reviews, recommendations, etc. It would be nice if you could select what information is published instead of all or nothing.