I’m Telling You, Apple (And Ping) Just Killed MySpace Or Why Ping Is the Future of Social Commerce

From GigaOm:

No, I'm not blown away by the 160 million number. What I'm impressed by is the thinking behind  Ping.

Ping may function like a cross between Facebook and Twitter for iTunes by allowing you to follow celebrities, create social cliques and get artist updates via an activity stream. I think it could have tremendous impact on social sharing and commerce.

Ping, from  what little I saw during Steve Jobs' demo, allows a similar level of social interaction. It can tell me who my friends think are cool and the top 10 favorites of people in my social graph. Some of my friends are famous deejays. Others just have eclectic musical tastes. They can collectively sift through over 10 million songs and help with the discovery of music.  This social-powered discovery is part of the biggest theme of our times: serendipity.

What if they too could share their likes and dislikes via a social layer inside Amazon.com? Or what if I could follow my favorite authors and get updates on their books? Much like Apple, Amazon owns book-based social service, Shelfari, and should find ways to embed the social layer inside of all Amazon products and connect its tens of millions of users.

In this model, if there is absolutely no friction to purchase (and let’s admit it, there is no friction to purchase, because iTunes is one of the easiest purchasing models in the world, artists are going to flock here.

If Apple opens the site up to a self service model, could you imagine what happens to the labels, not just MySpace?