Remember Ping? Apple sure does: it’s the “social network” for music discovery and sharing they embedded right into iTunes 10, together with a new icon (the one you love) and a refined UI. I’m not a big fan of Ping (I think it’s useless and far from being a “social network”) but Apple surely believes in it. After all, it’s a way to drive more downloaded to the iTunes Store, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ping extending to movies, TV shows and apps in the near future.
A few days ago Apple posted an Artists Ping - Guidelines document in which they describe how artists can easily create a new profile and start posting material on Ping. No pornography or racism is allowed, and artists cannot link to sources external to iTunes and other content providers.
Artists can also upload videos, but the max video size is 2GB in .mov, .m4v and .mp4 formats. The document contains an entire section on how to record and export videos from an iPhone / iPod Touch, which makes wonder whether future versions of iOS will come with even deeper Ping integration.
