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(Image courtesy of 9to5Mac)
Poor Ping: Despite sharing the same name as a Flash Gordon supervillain (well, there's the slight difference of one letter), Apple’s music-themed social network has become something like a tech version of Rodney Dangerfield in the respect department. But Cupertino is working hard to change all that.
9to5Mac is reporting that Apple has now published an “extensive” guide for independent artists trying to get added to the ranks of Ping, the company’s iTunes-based social network for music. According to Music Ally, the move is an effort by Cupertino to silence some of the critics who have dissed the service for being too focused on major labels and artists, when indies likely have the most to gain from something like Ping in the first place.
Apple’s solution is a document entitled “Artist Ping - Guidelines,” which gives indie artists a shortcut to getting up and running with Ping. Of course, such guidelines discourage linking to sites outside of iTunes and come with the usual Apple content policies which include “no pornography, hate speech, racism, nudity or drug use” -- which probably scares away a good chunk of indie artists in at least a few music genres right out of the gate.
“Do not create your artist profile until you are ready to make a post or two,” the Ping guidelines also recommend. “Fans will be far more likely to follow you if they can tell that your profile is active.”
The most interesting tidbit has Apple recommending that artists submit music videos, which can be up to 2GB (approximately 10 minutes) in size in the .MOV, .M4V or .MP4 format. 9to5Mac theorizes that the Ping service may eventually expand to allow uploads from iOS devices for all users of the social network.
In the meantime, if you’re an indie music artist, you can grab a PDF version of the full document at the Music Ally website and start getting your Ping on.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter