Ping and the WWDC Keynote

Apple sure had a big day yesterday at it’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Many new and overdue innovations were presented, but one thing was curiously missing from this list of Apple Wunderstats:

Apple Misc:
#1: App store’s rank among software retailers
5,200: Number of developers at WWDC 2011
14 billion: Apps downloaded from store in its history
425,000: Apps in the app store
2.5 billion: Amount paid to developers building apps
130 million: Books downloaded iBooks store

iTunes:
225 million: Number of credit card accounts linked to iTunes store
15 billion: Songs sold from iTunes store
18 million: Songs offered in iTunes
#1: Apple’s rank among music retailers

iPad:
25 million: iPads sold in 14 months
90,000: Apps made specifically for the iPad

iOS Misc:
200 million: iOS devices sold
44 percent: Share of mobile market Apple claims to have
#2: iPhone 4 camera’s popularity ranking on Flick
Over 1 billion: Tweets sent per week by iOS users
100 billion: Push notifications sent to iOS devices
66 percent: Amount of mobile browsing done on mobile Safari

Mac:
54 million: Active Mac users
73 percent: Number of those users with laptops
28 percent: Amount Mac sales rose year-over-year in Apple’s last quarter
3-4 million: Macs sold each quarter

MobileMe/iCloud:
$100 per year: Cost of MobileMe
$0: Cost of iCloud
$24.99 per year: Cost of iTunes Match
10: Devices that can be used with iCloud

MacOS:
$130: Usual cost of OS update
$30: Cost of OS X Lion update

Ping, Apple’s social network functionality for iTunes, is a no-show. On top of that, go to Apple’s website and you’ll see the last Ping press release was published on September 3, 2010. My guess? If it had even a shred of success, it would have made the list above. Everything from Macs to iOS devices to NUMBER OF CREDIT CARDS in iTunes made an appearance.

Take Apple’s silence on Ping and combine it with the financial stats around music sales:

225 million: Number of credit card accounts linked to iTunes store
15 billion: Songs sold from iTunes store
18 million: Songs offered in iTunes
#1: Apple’s rank among music retailers

This data has most likely started an internal conversation at Apple: “Is social media even necessary to facilitate a profitable online music business?” It doesn’t seem like it.

So, will Ping get phased out? Looking at the list of accomplishments in that data table above, if it wasn’t worth mentioning at a major conference like WWDC, it might not be worth pursuing at all.

However, now that the Mac will get an integrated AppStore via Lion, it is easy to visualize Apple expanding Ping’s reach outside of iTunes and into the OS itself to make it more comprehensive with Apps. Ping needs to drive revenue, and the Mac AppStore is a good coattail to ride.

If Apple doesn’t integrate Ping into the MacOS, I believe Ping will disappear within the next 12 months.