Dead. Ping Is Dead As Of 9/30. iTunes Gets Social With Facebook, Twitter, Artist Photo Sharing Instead

Ping Logo DeadUpdate: iTunes is getting more social, but not with Ping. Today Apple announced that Ping will be shut down on September 30th. iTunes 11 will instead display your Facebook friends who Liked each entry, offer Facebook and Twitter sharing for purchases, plus let musicians share photos on their artist pages. The changes come amongst a larger overhaul to the iTunes store and player design.

Essentially, Apple has baked the most critical elements of Ping right into iTunes 11 that will roll out in late October, namely music discovery and photos of your favorite artists. Meanwhile, Apple has scrapped redundant features like Twitter and Facebook-esque artist following, and niche parts like concert listings currently in Ping.

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Yammer’s David Sacks On Why The Startup Opportunity Ain’t What It Used To Be (And How Microsoft Integration Is Coming Soon)

IMG_0623Fewer than three months after Microsoft bought Yammer for $1.2 billion, founder David Sacks says that it is preparing to announce the first signs of integration “soon.” Speaking on the sidelines of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Sacks said that product announcements are being prepared for Yammer’s cloud-based enterprise social networking platform to appear in several Microsoft products. These could include products like Lync, Sharepoint and Office 365 — although Sacks would not directly confirm which one.

The integration of once-startup Yammer into the Leviathan that is Microsoft was one of the many fitting topics of conversation between Sacks and Mike Arrington on stage today. Sacks explained why he thought that tech startups needed to find new opportunities away from traditional technology.

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Ginzametrics Launches Big Update To Its Enterprise SEO Platform To Include Social Signals

social-signals-trended-valuesY-Combinator graduate and 500 Startups company Ginzametrics has an SEO management and analytics platform for enterprises (our previous coverage). So far it’s raised $1.7m in seed funding from YC, 500 Startups, Venture51 and a number of angels.

It’s now launched a big update to expand its coverage to include millions of social signals daily from Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus to provide marketers with a way of visualizing the impact of social media promotion on their SEO efforts.

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