∞ iTunes Ping ignores independent artists

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Apple has done a lot to promote music from all genres over the past 10 years, but its latest service leaves independent artists out in the cold.

Ping, Apple’s social networking service, allows artists to create a page on iTunes that their fans can follow. Artists are allowed to post more information than regular users, like pictures, videos and information about shows and tour dates.

However, the record label has to setup the page for you. That means that if you’re an independent artist on iTunes, you’re out of luck, because you don’t have a record label.

“I’m really disappointed,” said San Jose-based guitar player, Bill Lonero. “I’ve had music on iTunes for six years, but I’m not allowed to setup an artist page on iTunes to keep in touch with my fans.”

Lonero, who is set to release his band’s third studio album, said he was intrigued by Ping and was excited by the prospect of connecting directly with his fans using the service.

“Apple is a great company, but there is more to music than Lady GaGa,” said Lonero.

Lonero’s first two albums Slather and Relentless are available from the iTunes Store.

Apple confirmed for me that artist profiles are currently invite only and they hope to continue adding more artists.


  • Dean Lewis

    “Currently.” Maybe they’ll open it to independent artists once they are sure any kinks are worked out and are sure about how they’ll keep the system free of being abused.

  • Lucas

    It’s been up for 2 days. geesh. give them some time to get things sorted out

  • Curmudgeon Geographer

    Invite-only is nice for now while the stress tests are underway. Better to ensure fakery isn’t rampant. The “curated” environment Apple believes the majority of its customers expect. Opening the gates to everyone making an “artist” page would be insanely embarrassing to see happen. Maybe there isn’t an infrastructure to guarantee the persons who have product for sale in iTunes are the persons who will be creating Ping pages besides by invitation.

    They seem to be “curating” profile pictures right now. I joined Ping when Lady Gaga had under 5,000 followers and my profile picture seemingly instantly showed up. My wife joined this evening and her photo didn’t show up for hours later because it was being approved.

    It’s picking up speed, let’s check back and see how things are working in a month. And lets put some pressure up for Ping activity on following movie, book, and app use as soon as possible! Can you imagine the app discovery possible with something like this?

  • http://routenote.com Steven Finch

    Apple will be rolling out Ping to Independent artists over time. iTunes are very dedicated to getting all these artists onto their service, but it just takes time.

    http://routenote.com .. will be offering iTunes Ping to our artists very soon. RouteNote is the leading digital music distributor in the UK and helping our artists to get onto these services in our highest priority.

  • JP

    Apples faux pas about being open to all music and artists is jargon. Anyone can use iTunes to sell their music, but promoting their music is a whole different story. Let’s remember Apple is a huge conglomerate company and mostly cares about profits than openness – therefore why would they make it a free, easy and simple way for indy artists to create a Ping page. Also, the use of Ping for app discovery for your iDevices – HA! You seriously think Apple is going to let you easily, openly pilfer through the App Store? Think again.

  • http://joostschuur.com Joost Schuur

    Pomplamoose (http://www.pomplamoose.com/), who are very much indie and viral driven through Youtube and other sites just launched on Ping.

    http://c.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZConnections.woa/wa/viewProfile?userId=-10111

    Maybe they got an invite, or maybe it’s easier for artists to get on Ping than Lonero thinks.

  • Vamsmack

    I would agree somewhat. Nine Inch Nails & Trent Reznor’s new project How To Destroy Angels is on there. They have no official record label however I suppose based on Trent’s status he could make a few calls and get it done.

  • Mark

    This is typical of a huge company like Apple. They ignore the true artists that create real music and promote the hack garbage like Lady Gaga. Apple does need to realize that if they want to compete in the social networking game like Facebook and Myspace that they need to make Ping accessible to independent artists first and foremost. Those are the people that are going to promote Ping.

    • http://joostschuur.com Joost Schuur

      I don’t think it has anything to do with Apple being a ‘typical huge company’. Ping is a 1.0 product with the usual teething and scaling problems that accompany such a release. Once they’ve gone through all that they’ve learned from the the launch and implemented the systems on the backend to let all of their artists sign up I’m sure they’ll make it easier for all artists to sign up. Perhaps they’re simply trying to limit the number of artists with access until they can provide more tools and features for every one?

      The presence of Pomplamoose (ever hear of them?) who already have 500 followers makes me believe that they’re simply rolling out this ability slowly on a brand new product. Indies can already sell music in iTunes and be a part of the podcast directory. Ping is bound to be next.

  • http://gulture.com/wordpress/ Frank

    It took a few emails to Apple and a few days, but I found the best path for independent artists to take to get a Ping profile. Whether the profiles will do any good is another matter. Read the story at: http://gulture.com/wordpress/?p=792

  • http://twitter.com/PrattRic000 RichArd Pratt

    That’s Ok, There Will Be A Social Network JUST For Independent Artists!