This week:
- Apple unveils new social network Ping
- Advertising Age's top seven brand stories of the week
- Voice check in for Foursquare
Apple unveils new social network Ping
Applehas launched Ping which is “sort of like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes” according to Steve Jobs. Google’s networks haven’t always been that successful, Buzz hasn’t really caught on and we recently said goodbye to Wave. Apple is the latest major player to try their hand. As a music based network Ping threatens the supremacy of MySpace which is now focused heavily on music and artistic content after losing out to Facebook as amore general social network.
The potential for Ping is huge. If people share music and films they like with friends, which leads to the purchase of these items on iTunes, the financial reward for Apple is significant. Adding a social element to recommendations is a great idea for us users too. As Businessweek’s GIGAom points out, recommendations and reviews that appear on Amazon currently are from strangers. I have no means of knowing whether they share my taste or likes at all. Taking recommendations from friends whose tastes I trust means I can really trust their recommendations.
Advertising Age’s top seven brand stories of the week
Advertising Age has started producing a weekly chart detailing the leading seven brand stories in social media. This shows the brands involved, the topic, the perceived sentiment and the most linked to source. This is a really useful way to keep up to date with how corporate news is being discussed and shared and enables you to identify where the news started. Of this week’s seven (Facebook, Apple, BurgerKing, TBS, GM, Samsung and Google) five originated in mainstream online media, with two from blogs. Tracking the share of stories generated between mainstream and social news will be interesting. My hunch is that mainstream will continue to dominate but will bea bly supplemented by a few “power” blogs, in this instance, Gizmodo and ReadWriteWeb.

Voice check in for Foursquare
Android users are now able to shout at their phone to check in to locations or find their friends on Foursquare. The new app works across social networks allowing users to tell their friends on Twitter and Facebook, together with Foursquare, where theyare. Making it even easier to check in would make me far more likely to do sowherever I go. Voice recognition has been available on many phones for more than a decade though I’ve never seen more than novelty value in it. If I see people stating the obvious to nobody in particular every time they enter a restaurant or bar I won’t think they are strange and will give it a try myself.