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Five Things Ping Needs Right Now.

I don't know about you but I am underwhelmed by Ping. It reeks of big software. The following is just a short list of ways Ping completely missed the mark.

1. Friend Importing.

I can't even find friends I know are on Ping using the email address I know they registered with. WTF?! Every other new social network has figured out that my network of friends is on Facebook and Twitter and I have no intention of recreating it from scratch. Let me import it!

2. Real Music.

Not everyone listens to Lada Gaga and 50 Cent. Apple, you already know everything I listen to because I know you pump it all through your Genius system. Get with it and create artists for them already.

3. Integrate with iTunes.

Am I missing something? Ping is basically completely separate from iTunes besides the fact that it's interface was shoe-horned into it.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could follow and like artists using the right-click menu in the main iTunes context. This is a no-brainer. If a user will take the time to rate a song from iTunes, clearly she may also want to follow that artist in Ping.

4. Play nice with others.

Get going with Web-Services. Users want to show off, so let them. Consider website badges, facebook posts, tweets, recommendations, developer APIs, etc...

5. Let me tell you what I want.

All popular social applications got popular by listening to their users. Apple, we know you know better than us what we want when it comes to hardware, but you're new to social, lend us an ear.