With the release of iTunes 10, Apple unveiled Ping, a new social music network that is built into the new iTunes release. I like Apple, and music, and my friends – this is right up my alley.

Upon signing up, uploading a profile picture, telling Ping some of my musical preferences, and my favorite bands, I’m in. I poke around, follow some of the featured artists, rate a song  or two. Then I decide this is kind of boring without my friends, so I start hunting for the ability to add friends. I have to do through invites by email address. This is ridiculous. What am I going to do, hunt down, copy and paste, and spam my friends with some “Hey bro, come check out my music reviews on Ping!” messaging? No.

That this doesn’t automatically interface with Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, or any other network is a cardinal sin.

So I start searching for artists. I follow a few of the acts they recommend (10 total acts), search for a few more and none of them are listed. I guess they aren’t a part of this universe yet. So I scroll through my feed of artists I’ve liked, which is basically a Facebook feed from the artist’s page. I can comment or Like a post. And while some of the posts are working hard to feel organic and genuine, most are pretty transparently some intern at the marketing arm of the record label posting another link to some YouTube music video.

Coldplay does a good job here with giving the posts an organic feel.

Still though, is this enough to get me to care about Ping? Probably not. In fact, at this point, it just feels like another social network (albeit from a far superior design team) for me to keep track of, but without any of the benefits or fun. It doesn’t even act like last.fm and keep track of the music I listen to. I can get all of these updates from Facebook, which is actually where my friends already are, and this has absolutely no advantage over that. There’s no killer feature or reason why Ping makes me want to come back. I’m sure Apple has big plans for Ping, but until they get the social part of this social network worked out, I’ve lost interest.