据了解，目前超过100万的iTunes用户正在使用苹果新功能Ping，苹果方面则称新版iTunes v.10已经有300万的下载量，其中三分之一的用户下载后立即开始使用Ping。

ping

Ping是一款支持iTunes用户跟踪名人、音乐家及其作品，并创建艺术家列表，与朋友共同分享相关音乐的社交工具。iTunes的问世已经有些年头了，目前用户已达1.6亿，苹果的当务之急是组建一个社交网站，将这些用户全部整合到一起，搞不好真成就了一个Myspace杀手也未可知。但一些观察家并不看好这一点，因为苹果的社交网站计划缺乏一个整合系统，尤其是苹果与Facebook的数据分享提议遭拒后，这一计划的实现更是难上加难。

我的困惑是，有这么多社交网站在虚拟世界中泛滥，用户可能很快就厌倦了在各个网站上繁琐的登入登出，会产生将这些网站合为一体的想法，或者为图省事永远只光顾一个社交网站，像Facebook这样可以为不同人群划分多种社交圈子的网站，则更容易成为他们的首选。换句话说，如果我想建一个专业的社交圈（比如说商务人际网），是否可以将这个圈子独立出来，只要稍微覆盖我的家人和朋友，完全不涉及其他联系人？我一直有种预感，社交网站也终将成为现实世界的翻版，因为它也拥有社交群体分化这一特征，如果我的孩子也使用社交网站，他们肯定把我排除在自己的Facebook交际圈之外。

iTunes

用户究竟更希望登陆一个统一的，但拥有群体分化功能的社交网站，还是更愿意进入不同的独立社交网站，我不得而知，但我更关心社交群体分化这一功能，因为在个性化的地盘上，用户可以自由表达自己的好恶情绪。比如说，用户在商务人际网这种类型的圈子里可以强忍自己的不满，但在Facebook上的个人社交群中则可以为一桩芝麻大的小事随意宣泄。

如果乔布斯认为Ping走的路子正确无误，那么他就有可能重步Google后尘，就像Google Buzz一样无功而返。这不禁让人联想起苹果原先自信满满，但市场并不买帐的其他败笔。尽管如此，我还是想起了一个好友，她可是iPhone的忠实信徒，尽管iPhone手机的性能远不如她预期，她还是虔诚得夸张，“我就要iPhone手机”，那说话的语调和声势至今令我印象深刻。

不管怎么说，乔布斯可不是吃素的，他为苹果设计了光辉蓝图，创造了一个个苹果神话，他大部分时候的决策还是非常英明的。

Another big hit for Apple with Ping?

Steve Jobs and Apple might have done it yet again. The plaudits are not unanimous (when are they ever?) but the balance of ‘informed’ opinion seems to be in favour of Ping, Apple’s new iTunes social networking feature By Ian Scales.

Reports over the weekend indicate that over one million users of iTunes are now using Ping which is, inevitably, a cross between Facebook and Twitter. The feature is part of the new version of  iTunes, v. 10, which already has 3 million downloads with one third of those immediately using Ping, says Apple.

With Ping, users can ‘follow’ celetrities and musicians, create obscure interest groups and generally be social about music to the advantage of everyone involved.

On one level, this was an obvious move. iTunes has been around for years and has 160 million users – all Apple needed to do was attach a social networking app to the side of iTunes and pingo! It may have a real MySpace Murdoch killer on its hands.

But the lure of a good catchline (“Ping-pong”) has proved too much for some observers who are already writing it off.

The most trenchant criticism is reserved for  the lack of integration  -  with Facebook in particular, because Jobs says Facebook wasn’t ready to do an acceptable deal with Apple for data sharing..

The broad question, it appears to me, is what direction the world is taking? Will users tire of having multiple social networking log-ins and so seek to have them either aggregated or, if that’s still clumsy, will they be prepared to have just one social networking site, especially if Facebook (say) can provide enough groups and features and ways of dividing up friends and contacts to make it viable.

My hunch – and this is by no means an original idea – is that the social networking has to be a sort of analogue of the real world and heavily support that separation. Especially if the experience of my children is anything to go by, now that they have firmly locked me out of their Facebook circle.

Whether that can be done by some sort of information sharing between sites so that there’s a single log-in but still user-controlled separation , or whether users will prefer to have completely separate sites, is uncertain, but for the time being I think I plump for separation if only because branding is important in this area and users are building up virulent loves and hatreds. Some users can stomach the thought of themselves as a Linkedin types, but draw the line at Facebook, which they see as trivial and sometimes nasty. For instance.

If Jobs gets Ping right he will be going where Google has, so far, failed with Buzz. And it does bring you back to the observation that there is so much that Apple gets right so much of the time and much of that magic touch is down to Jobs himself.

I vividly remember a close friend and confirmed gadget-stamper who got religion with the iPhone. Instead of throwing it down because it didn’t work in the way she expected (her usual attitude), she did what can only be described as a long and over-the-top fawn: “I just LOVE my iPhone”.  I still haven’t quite recovered.

The fact is that Jobs is not so much a dweeb (in the Gates tradition) as a sort of technology couturier like a Karl Lagerfeld or a style guru like Terrance Conran of Habitat (he even wears fashionista black).

He designs the big picture and he vets the dogfood to make sure it’s magical when it arrives. And mostly, he gets it right.（source：TelecomTV）

声明：本文中文为游戏邦翻译，英文原文采用TelecomTV，转载时请保留版权信息，谢谢！