Ping Still Trying With Shared Playlists

You’re well aware I’m not in love with Ping, and I’d be willing to bet you aren’t, either. Ping blows. Like, a lot. A thinly-veiled attempt to sell more albums, Ping has, so far, been a joke of a ‘social’ experience.

Now, Ping has added the ability to share playlists. Of your own music. Why this feature wasn’t implemented on day one will remain forever a mystery. That’s the only reason I, for one, signed up – to share my music with friend and foe alike! Of course, when I realized that Apple wanted me to be more ‘volunteer sales associate’ than ‘music enthusiast’, I quickly shut it off and disabled my iTunes Store altogether. But playlists? I can get behind playlists.

If anything, it shows that Apple is at least trying to make a concession or two towards developing Ping as more of a community, and less an advertisement for the Store. I’m not sure if playlists on their own are enough to entice the masses, especially with great alternatives like 8tracks out there offering the same functionality (and in a real browser window, to boot), but it’s the first sensible step on the long, hard road to validity, for sure.