Apple announced a massive new service today called Ping. It appears to be a direct replacement of iLike, and it combines many of the technologies developed by Facebook, combined with Last.fm and Twitter. Most significant is that it doesn’t have any Facebook integration yet. As far as I’m concerned, Apple has also just become a direct Facebook competitor. While they don’t have the user base of Facebook, they are a force to be reckoned with and they have a platform which has already taken developers away from Facebook.
While Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and every other social competitor can claim that this isn’t a competitor, users can post photos, videos, events, and simultaneously share their music, thanks to all of their agreements that are in place. Steve Jobs called it a “social network that’s all about music”. While Facebook is not the music social network, Apple already has physical platforms (iPhone, iPods, Apple TV, and Macs) that they own which enable social interactions anywhere in the world.
I’ve written extensively about the threat that Apple presents to Facebook, including the threat against Facebook Credits. The most significant thing about Apple’s platform is that they already have payments, premium content, and 160 million users. The one thing that doesn’t exist yet is the ability to build applications that integrate with Apple’s new social network, however this is a first step and we believe this could become a much greater threat.
Granted, there are plenty of people in the world who don’t have access to Apples’ technology. However in the attention economy, the most valuable consumers will rapidly shift their attention (voting power) to Apple’s platform. This is extremely dangerous for Facebook. In the short term I’m sure we won’t see a massive shift from Facebook, however right now users will have to choose where to post their images.
In the immediate future Facebook probably won’t be affected. Additionally, if Apple ever decides to integrate into Facebook, the center of competition will revolve around who’s most effective at filtering the feed. For the time being however, Apple has become one of Facebook’s biggest threats.
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what a load of horse pucky, facebook could be knocked off it's throne, but not by the likes of apple. Apple has the reputation of being proprietary about everything, and there is no way that they could garner the following that facebook has. That being said, I think Zuckerburg is an arrogant tool, and his arrogance will eventually kill his company. The only real competition facebook will ever have, will come from another killer app that gives people a reason to congregate together for no other reason than to chat or play games. Facebook already has music, games, movies, apps, and millions of regular users. Apple has already lost before it has started. Ping will flop.
Comment by Carl Roach — September 1, 2010 @ 10:37 am
Paranoid much? Ping is highly unlikely to even put a noticeable dent in FB, no matter how successful it is.
As to the commenter above, it is equally unclear that Ping will flop. It serves a very prescribed need – a "social Genius" to go with the "matching Genius" service already in iTunes. For those who love recommendations, especially from people they know, this will work to give them what they want – where they want it.
Beyond that, it doesn't need to be a general purpose service. Apples & oranges, if you'll pardon the pun.
Comment by Bruce Stewart — September 1, 2010 @ 11:33 am
Wonder if bill gates will join.
Comment by Optimised Onion — September 1, 2010 @ 11:36 am
Am I the only one who feels like any discussion of Lala has been left out of today's announcement?
Lala was the best music streaming, socially-integrated music service out there when Apple acquired it. And then it went away. Clearly Ping is the next generation of iTunes and Lala coming together.
Comment by Andrew Strickman — September 1, 2010 @ 11:59 am
In fact, Ping supports Facebook Connect…
Comment by Meow — September 1, 2010 @ 12:03 pm
I'm surprised no one is mentioning that Apple essentially re-released iLike with Ping. It seems to me like it is exactly the same product. Does anyone out there remember iLike (bought by MySpace/Fox Interactive Media)?
Comment by Nick Glassman — September 1, 2010 @ 1:06 pm
Can they even call it Ping, with Ping.fm in existence?
Comment by trellis23 — September 1, 2010 @ 1:38 pm
It would seem that more than any potential impact to Facebook, that the continued shift and focus of MySpace as a music focused social network is more likely to take yet another hit.
Comment by Andrew Holeman — September 1, 2010 @ 1:48 pm
Nick – good post. Hope all is well-
Off topic- what's up with Yahoo and how come no one has acquired them? They still have a huge audience and their market cap is only $18Bil. If someone came in with the right strategy there could be a ton of upside monetizing that audience.
It's like they fell off the earth-
Comment by Dennis Keohane — September 1, 2010 @ 2:00 pm
I don't really see apple fighting facebook. Not the same user base, and their privacy reputation is hellish–they actively have attempted to sue their users over installing applications they want to.
I can imagine this being an issue for myspace, since they're music-oriented, and their little declining niche market may have some trouble, but even then, everything apple has costs money, and even a tiny bit of money is still an entrance barrier to be overcome.
I don't imagine Jobs allowing this to do any better than things like classmates.com. He's too much of a control freak to ever allow the degrees of freedom he'd need to for Ping or any apple service to overtake facebook. A highly-restrictive, pay-to-use model goes against the logic that builds most online company's power.
Further, it already has a "facebook connect" feature built in, so the question of integration has been resolved.
Silly article, I can't imagine anyone else feels this way about it.
Comment by mmm — September 1, 2010 @ 3:10 pm
Apple fanboy bollocks! Apple = weak assed new world order. Long Live Google! Long Live Freedom & Choice!
Comment by John Lee Blackwell — September 1, 2010 @ 4:40 pm
Just writing a piece on Ping.
The problem with it, in my view, is the fact that it's not global: it works only in the 23 countries where users can buy music from the iTunes Music Store. I installed iTunes 10, but I don't have Ping.
I don't think Ping can tackle Facebook or Last.FM until it goes global.
Comment by Stan Schroeder — September 2, 2010 @ 12:41 am
Ping won't affect Facebook; Ping will destroy MySpace.
Comment by Meow — September 2, 2010 @ 4:08 am
Does the article writer work for Apple??? Carl makes alot of good points about why Apple has little chance of taking over. I love my iPods but my bread and butter is in PCs. I don't see moving to Apple soon. Also, I long stopped purchasing my music from iTunes because of the proprietery format. So far I don't see anything coming close to threatening Facebook's old in social media…
Comment by Jenn — September 2, 2010 @ 4:58 am
Not sure I entirely agree. I've detailed some reasoning in a response: http://ow.ly/2ytNs
Comment by Roger Harris — September 2, 2010 @ 6:35 am
I am somewhat surprised that Facebook is a social network, while Apple is a company producing hardware technology. Why are they rivals?
Comment by Papa Johns Coupons — September 8, 2011 @ 1:16 pm
I do not like Apple at the point of them, or sue other companies despite the undeniable success of their
Comment by Autozone Locations — September 9, 2011 @ 10:41 pm
Recently, Apple and Facebook have partnered together to fight Google + projects and development Siri
Comment by kinkos locations — November 7, 2011 @ 9:19 pm
Recently, Apple and Facebook have partnered together to fight Google + projects and development Siri
big fight and big impact in the market
Comment by gadget | technology — November 15, 2011 @ 10:45 pm