When Apple released their iTunes integrated Ping service back in September 2010, it kind of looked to me like as they had just come out of some corporate buzz meeting where social networks were the topic of discussion. Not wanting to be left out of the social circle, I get the impression that Apple threw a couple of engineers into a room and told them to make iTunes a more socially capable beast, eventually giving birth to what we know as iTunes Ping.
Few could argue that Apple's failed attempt at making music social had much merit. Ping, for starters, was an awful name, and was a little too close to another semi-failed social app, Ping.fm. Of course, it was only the likes of us geeks that knew that, but that's besides the point.
