Apple Inc. (AAPL) to Put Ping Out of Its Misery Sept. 30

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was hoping you’d remember Ping. Not Bing, the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) answer to Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Search. Ping, as in the music-centric social network that Apple introduced two year ago to encourage traffic to the iTunes store.

As of Tuesday, Ping no longer accepts any new members, as the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) social network is being put down Sept. 30, it was announced. The idea behind Ping was to allow user to “follow” their friends and “like” music choices, and allowed them to follow favorite artists and bands for concert schedules and lany album releases. Integration with Twitter followed a few months after the fall 2010 launch, but Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) never joined the party. Ping was put together in the hope that music discovery would be easier within the iTunes library, which was overflowing with songs and albums.

“We tried Ping, and I think the customer voted and said ‘This isn’t something that I want to put a lot of energy into,'” Appple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook said in an interview this summer.

In relation to this, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced iTunes 10.7 during its big launch event Wednesday, which seems have some of the same features that Ping was offering. It seems that the new version of iTunes wil have an interactive bent, allowing users to share their music purchases on Facebook, and they can keep up with new albums or posted photos by their favorite artists or bands.

How this will align competitively with the new Nokia Music app that is a feature on the Lumia handsets by Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) – a streaming and interactive service that will have more than 150 playlists available – that will run the Windows 8 Phone operating system by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) will be something to note. While it may not be a major impact in the marketplace in terms of smartphone choices, usage of iTunes vs. Nokia Music among the differnt handset users might be noteworthy for each company in determining mobile music saturation. But making iTunes more interactive and social can certainly make it more entertaining, which may drive more sales and increase revenue for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), which of course would be good for investors like hedge-fund manager Chase Coleman of Tiger Global Management LLC.