And that's worse than Ping not knowing who The Doors are?

Well, the thing is that you could follow The Doors all you want, you wouldn't be informed of new albums, new concerts or new posts from the band any time soon. I'm not exactly surprised it's not there.

Or more probably the artist pages are created by the artists.

or by labels

The fact that people like him aren't on this social network is why I think it will take off. A music-based social network needs people who, you know, are kind of into music.

Look at the 3 genres of music he chose, then look at the suggestions. Just try and justify Yo-Yo Ma. Don't get me wrong, I love his work, it's just that the blogger here didn't choose classical.

Because we all like the same music.....

I don't like Jack Johnson but I know who he is. You'd have to be a pretty lazy music consumer to not know who he is, the kind that doesn't buy music but just listens to ClearChannel stations. Otherwise known as the kind of people that Apple doesn't want on the social network because they won't buy music and aren't much interested in it either.

I disagree. The compelling reason Apple would enter the social space was to inform their customers about artists they don't already know about. To contend that Apple isn't interested in the ClearChannel listener is exactly wrong. In Apple's ideal world, ClearChannel doesn't even have a reason to exist. Their goal should be to expose artists and music that their customers haven't already heard about, in order to encourage them to buy their music.

I'm not sure he needs any "music-related credibility" (whatever that is) to make valid points about Ping. I'm pretty sure all he needs to make valid criticisms of Ping is:

1. iTunes (check) 2. the desire to use a music-oriented social network (http://www.last.fm/user/swizec - check, I think)

The only thing I can think of that might disqualify him from having, uh, cred here is that he already has a last.fm - I bet Ping catches on best, if it remains as it is now, with people who haven't sought out a music/social network, but see Ping in their iTunes, hassle-free, and decide it's pretty neat.