Apple Adds Playlist Support to Ping

Apple’s music-focused social networking service, Ping, gained the ability to build and share playlists. Thanks to the new feature, users can import playlists from iTunes, build playlists in Ping, and they can let Ping friends add to their playlists, too.

Ping playlists include standard song previews, the ability to purchase individual tracks or the full playlist, customer ratings, and customer reviews.

Ping Playlists

Apple introduced Ping in September along with iTunes 10 during the company’s fall iPod-related media event. At the time, company CEO Steve Jobs said Ping was “like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes,” although it didn’t support either social networking service.

Facebook support was touted as a feature before the Ping launch, but was pulled because Apple and Facebook couldn’t strike a deal. Apple recently, however, added Twitter integration to Ping so users can tweet their iTunes purchases, posts, reviews, and song and album Likes.

Ping is free and requires an iTunes account. The service is available via the iTunes application, and on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.