Is Ping a social network or sales tool?

I'm sure there are regular meetings at the iTunes department of Apple and the topic up for discussion will be how to increase sales. It is, after all, any company's primary goal. A couple of years ago we had Genius, which examines your music library and then displays a panel on the right of iTunes of music you should buy. It's basically an excuse to display lots of Buy buttons and get people to buy more music. Now there's Ping. Thinly disguised as a social network, it examines your friends' music libraries, compares it with your own and then displays Buy buttons. It'll say "Joe Smith likes Lady Gaga" and it'll follow it with a button to buy the album or track, or "Joe Smith bought such and such a track," then it'll follow with a button to buy the track or album. I'm drowning in a sea of social networks, there are too far many and I wonder if I really need one that constantly nags me to buy stuff.

I had some trouble getting Ping up an running, but that's to be expected because it's only day 1 of Ping and as Steve Jobs said, sometimes a million people access iTunes in a single day. I think today is probably one of those days, so the errors can be forgiven. Accessing it from the iPhone is through the iTunes store app, and it seemed a bit limited at first sight, but then half an hour later it had slightly more in it. I had errors creating my profile and couldn't upload a photo, but then it magically appeared later. I think it's just slow getting going.

With millions of people trying to create accounts, you can expect the service to be like this for a day or two, so try it in a couple of days time when there are fewer people around. It will no doubt will get better over time.

I'm not sure I'll use it much myself, I waste too much time on social networks as it is and don't need another one.