Too Soon for Ping?

I was pretty excited to update to iTunes 10 after seeing some new UI updates and features. Aside from some interface changes (I’ll save that for another post), I wanted to get started on Ping, Apple’s “social network for music.” And then I started catching up my Twitter feed to see a few running posts by @Scobleizer pointing out one significant flaw with Ping: Artist discovery. I couldn’t believe the names he was tweeting: Black Eyed Peas, Daft Punk, Madonna… So I gave it a try as well, searching around 15 headline-caliber artists, and what do you know? “Your search had no results.”

Was it too early to release Ping? Should Apple have waited a while to get more artists onboard? Definitely. After registration, Ping recommended only 12 artists to me, and I only chose 2 or 3 to follow. On top of that, I’ve been reading Facebook Connect has been axed (for now) due to “onerous terms.” On the contrary, there are features that are pretty useful – concert tickets, especially. I’ve read reports that Apple was working on a partnership with LiveNation, but after clicking on the tickets link for a Jack Johnson concert, I was redirected to Ticketmaster.com. If in-app ticket purchasing is in the horizon, I could see it being a useful tool. We’ll see what happens in a few months, but for now, Facebook Pages, with a larger database of artists and essentially offering the same content, is shining.

Update: Just read on Engadget

Facebook’s friend-finding API is generally open access, but anyone that wants to hit it an extreme number of times has to sign a deal agreeing to protect Facebook user data and limit network impact. Given the sheer size of the iTunes customer base, it’s no surprise that Facebook wanted such a deal, but apparently negotiations broke down — possibly over what Steve Jobs referred to as “onerous terms” — and Apple decided to just go ahead and use the API anyway.

Audience Participation

Last night my friends Wong Fu Productions held their 1st east coast installment of International Secret Agents. The final headliner was recently signed artists Far*East Movement, but what stood out to me was the little bit of audience participation they had before they went on (watch video below). The gist is: you call a number shown and appear as a blob on the screen with your phone number. The louder you scream into your phone, the larger your blob would get. At the end, they gave out prizes to whoever won. I’ve seen plenty of audience participation at events before, but never like this. Usually they would be texting to receive additional info, or getting a message shown on the jumbo-tron. I have no idea what this service is called, but I would definitely like to know, so if you or anyone knows, please leave a reply.

Update: Thanks to D.M., found out the system is called Big Screams by Elie Zananiri

Lessn Your URL

Just ran across a pretty awesome personal url shortener (Lessn) that you can use on your own site. These services are great for sharing links, especially on Twitter to reduce character count. For instance, this posts link is (http://www.jeffsoo.com/blog/2010/08/lessn-your-url/), but shortened to (http://jeffsoo.com/s/3). It is extremely easy to install and use. After I set up a database and changed some settings in the .php file, I was good to go. The only thing that I would prefer is that it would create a url without the extra folder (http://wwww.website.com/x/), but I would assume that it could work if I threw all the files into my root folder. Though it doesn’t provide any metrics like bit.ly, it’s definitely worth a try on your own site, especially if you have your own shorter vanity url.

Youtube’s New Video Player UI

Youtube has started to roll out a UI update on its video player to complement its new description, analytics, like/dislike, save to, share, embed, and flag feature set “New Watch Page.” The player itself is Flash 10, and not HTML 5. Embedding the video on another site will still show the old player.

Facebook “Like”

Remember the days of becoming a “fan” on Facebook? As part of their new Open Graph protocol, Facebook has replaced the “Become a Fan” button to “Like,” and no, it’s not just a change for the sake of syntax. In an effort to increase social awareness, sites employing the like button can track the amount of “likes” or approvals in a similar fashion as you would see if someone likes a status update, comment, or photo. Leah Pearlman, a product manager at Facebook blogs:

This is similar to how you might rate a restaurant on a reviews site. If you go to the restaurant and have a great time, you may want to rate it 5 stars. But if you had a particularly delicious dish there and want to rave about it, you can write a review detailing what you liked about the restaurant. We think of the new “Like” feature to be the stars, and the comments to be the review.

Implementation has flourished. According to Facebook’s Developer Blog, more than 50,000 sites have implemented the “like” button as well as other social plugins in a week after launch.