Ping:

Apple had a big event on Wednesday, where they introduced Ping, a social network for music lovers. Ping allows you to follow friends and artists, have custom music recommendations based on your followers, and share concert details. You can access Ping by downloading iTunes 10, going into the iTunes store, and activating Ping. Read our blog ‘Social Network, Meet iTunes‘ to find out more.

Twitter Usage Up:

Twitter usage went up 33% from May to August. In August, Twitter processed over 2.64 billion Tweets. Twitter now has over 145 registered users, and activity has more than doubled this year.

Chrome 6:

For Chrome’s two-year anniversary, they are introducing Google Chrome Version Six. Mashable describes it as “The Modern Browser,” Chrome 6 does indeed boast a number of improvements, but as with previous updates, the focus remains on speed and simplicity.” Download it here: http://www.google.com/chrome

If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Join ‘em?:

Once the leading social network, MySpace is now syncing up with Facebook. This week, MySpace announced that users can now sync status updates with Facebook. You can also sync status updates with Twitter. Even with this new development, with the introduction of Ping, Myspace has to wonder whether their last niche, music, will be compromised.

Spot Trot:

I am including a local social media pick this week  – this one derives from Richmond, Virginia. There are plenty of social media apps and tools being developed in Richmond, one of which is Spot Trot.  Created by Joel Erb, Spot Trot has a big music twist to it. The app offers a customized mobile platform to artists, which they build for their fans. Clients include Dave Matthews Band and Tim McGraw. Partners include Live Nation and Apple. You can follow them on Twitter at @spottrot.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Steve Jobs described it as ‘Facebook and Twitter, meet iTunes’.

The capabilities of Ping include:

• Social music discovery: you can share music you’re listening to and see music your friends are listening to
• Follow and be followed: you can follow, and be followed by, friends and artists
• Share your thoughts and opinions
• Custom song and album charts: See top 10 lists customized by what your followers are listening to
• Over 17,000 concert listings: You can see upcoming concerts, and share concerts you are attending
• Easy integration with the iPhone/iPod Touch
  
• Available immediately

Our first thought? “Sorry, MySpace.  It was nice knowing you…”  Our second thought: Could anyone but Apple do this? Doubtful.  When you have over 160 million active accounts already using iTunes, it’s easy to see how this could catch on.  And before you cite Facebook’s half-billion users, consider that iTunes number doesn’t include the millions who download the software just as a music player/organizer/podcast feeder and never buy anything.

From the following screenshots, you can get a look at Ping, and see that it integrates seamlessly with the iPhone/iPod Touch.

The first screen shows an artist’s page, own-able by the performers themselves, which you can easily imagine would be a boon to the fan relations of all acts, big and especially small:

Next, the individual profile page, where you can share your musical taste with your friends and followers, even showing them what shows you’ll be going to.  This represents a tremendous opportunity, again for artists, but also for fan meetups and peer networking:

Finally, the ubiquitous “feed” page, where you see the most recent updates from the people you follow, what they’re listening to and what they’re buying:

Still think “how did we live without this?” is a bit hyperbolic?  Let us know your thoughts while we furiously refresh the iTunes download page.

- Thomas (@thomasmcdonald) & Anna (@alucas9)

Apple Addressed iPhone 4 Reception Issues:

Those who are lucky enough to have the iPhone 4 and unlucky enough to have reception problems along with it may soon have a solution…sort of.  Apple has admitted that the formula they use to calculate signal strength is “totally wrong.” Basically, this issue could cause a person to see 4 bars on their phone when they are actually in a poor service area. Apple is now going to follow AT&T’s recommended formula and will offer a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. This new software will be available for free for the new iPhone, as well as the iPhone 3Gs and 3G.

Hulu Plus:

The online television website Hulu is now offering a paid subscription for additional episodes.  The subscription will cost $9.99 a month, and will offer more episodes of shows to viewers. The tagline for this new service, called Hulu Plus, touts “More wherever. More whenever. Than ever.” Recent episodes from ABC, NBC, Fox & other network shows that were always free will still be of no charge to viewers.

New Facebook Stats:

Facebook has released some new interesting stats, the most astounding being that Facebook users spend 16 billion minutes on Facebook every day. A cumulative 16 billion minutes every day. Other stats include that 50% of active users log on to Facebook every day, about 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States, and more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices (and these users are twice as active.)

New Facebook Photo Feature:

Facebook is testing a new photo feature this week. This feature uses facial detection technology to make the photo tagging process easier and faster. Facebook also mentioned that there will be more photo features to come. View the official Facebook blog here: http://bit.ly/9j3kdh

Google’s News for You:

Google has revamped Google news by making it more customizable and sharable. This new feature, called News for You, tries to make the Google News homepage relevant to each user. You can go to the news homepage and edit personalization options to customize what subjects you want on your homepage – such as business, health, entertainment, or any subject you want to add. This new feature also makes it easier you to share stories on social networks.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Notes from the Home Front

When you think of Bonnaroo what pops into your head? Certainly not Brazil! Believe it or not, the Manchester festival seems to be quite popular in this South American country as demonstrated by the surprising number of tweets in Portuguese.

On Friday the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) posted an article entitled, “PR’s Role in Building Bonnaroo,” highlighting PR’s role in the evolution of the festival. In essence, the PRSA attempts to take credit for Bonnaroo’s success, and seems to discredit the festivals original crowd and perceived purpose.  We found it comical that the article was tweeted almost a week after its posting, used poor grammar, and came out when Bonnaroo attendance was low in comparison with recent years.

Saturday afternoon’s World Cup match between the United States and England was expected to be a popular topic among festival tweeters. However, surprisingly few tweets circulated around the world’s most popular sporting event over the weekend.  Much to our dismay, Bonnaroo was a little late starting the game’s live video stream, causing ‘Roo-goers to miss the opening ceremony.

The most common themes of the weekend centered around the heat and the bands.  Extreme temperatures caused tweeters to vocalize their discontent, but who could blame them? On Friday, Nashville was reported to have a heat index of 100!   ‘Roo goers, likewise, expressed their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with band performances on Twitter.  Reviews posted by Spin! and Rolling Stone magazines were frequently linked; however, it is indescernable if this was by those at ‘Roo or those at home living vicariously through the opinion of others. Our hearts were captured by The New York Times’ “4 Word Review” – short, sweet, and simple.

Another favorite of ‘Roo fans was Aziz Ansari’s photo with Beyonce and JayZ (http://bit.ly/d5005G) is staggering with 100 retweets.

Notes from the Field

In a previous post (Feedback’s Off To Bonnaroo 2010), we mentioned some of the apps the Feedback team was would be testing in the field.  Well test they did! Here are some of their findings.

The biggest issue at the festival, by unanimous vote, was cell and wi-fi service. According to Dean (@dbrowell), Bonnaroo’s problem is that it has an end customer that is savvier than they are.  They need the technology to accommodate them.  In spite of this, though, our field agents were able to get a pretty good idea of how some of these apps worked.

The team agreed that the official Bonnaroo app, while an improvement from last year, still has a few kinks to work out.  The schedule feature worked well, but Road Trip was virtually useless.  Bonnaroo radio’s purchase feature, while a good idea, was ineffective.  This function could greatly benefit bands, provided Bonnaroo and Apple can get it operating next year.

In the eyes of soccer fan Jeff (@ideaman), the FIFA app worked very well.  A banner for MobiTV ran across the top, and for $9.00 he was able to sign up for the service and watch live matches streamed to his iPhone.

Hot Potato, while a cool app, did not achieve the level of adoption we had hoped for.  It seems we were a bit ahead of the curve on that one though, because today an updated and much more efficient version of the app is available. Another new app, FriendMapper, was interesting, but likewise had glitches.  Friends have to be logged in for it to work properly because it doesn’t automatically find and geotag you.  The team believes that partnering with events or vendors would likely help remedy this issue and make the app more user friendly.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for observations from the field.  Feedbackers at Bonnaroo have seen some things no man should see.  Stay tuned for future updates and detailed reports on the utilization and success of social media at Bonnaroo.

Before we part, we at Feedback would like to send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Matt Sloan.  His untimely death was a shock and tragedy.  May his memory rock on.

— Feedback Intern Brittney Trimmer (@bntrim). Video montage edited by Feedback Intern Brad Carr (@bcarr).