

Ask HN: Was Apple's Ping Successful? - swellular

Of course there was a lot of hate spewed across the interwebs about Apple's ping being a complete #FAIL. But was it successful in terms of Apple's goal for it--to get people to buy more music?
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swiecki
It may be worthwhile to compare the success of ping in increasing sales to the
success of Genius in increasing sales.

I don't have bulk data on this at all, but I can say that personally, I've
bought songs and apps that I've seen recommended to me on their respective
Genius lists, but I've never bought a song that a friend has recommended.

Is the genius algorithm more meaningful for sales than social connections? In
my experience, yes, algorithm beats friends.

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swellular
Right, Netflix has proven that with their algorithm (worth $1M in a developer
contest!)

