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Apple’s new music-oriented social network Ping could mean the end for Myspace, which has been a quasi-middle man for many bands, up until this point, to sell their music to fans.
While many users fled Myspace for Facebook, many bands and music fans have stuck around, preferring the customization options that Myspace offers.
Myspace has been a destination for brands that want to promote their music and an outlet for many music lovers who want to keep tabs on their favorite band.
Many bands depend on Apple’s iTunes store to hawk their latest riffs, ballads, and raps and they’ve used their Myspace page to direct adoring fans to purchase songs from iTunes by providing a link on their page.
Hence, Myspace has survived as a middleman of sorts for the music industry. And it appears killing the middleman is Apple’s aim.
With the iTunes store offering bands an avenue to not only promote but sell their music, Ping seems like the logical choice over Myspace. Apple released iTunes 10 today which is likely to be the platform for Ping. The only thing Myspace has is a new homepage design. Not sure if a redesign is enough to compete with Ping if it’s successful.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs describes Ping as Facebook + Twitter for music. Ping will provide a newsfeed to keep tabs on what friends are watching and listening to, custom song and album charts, more than 17,000 concert listings, and a fully integrated iTunes library to purchase music.
