Ping is Apple’s social network built on top of iTunes. iTunes, of course, is the biggest music store in the universe. Kindle for the Web is Amazon’s latest addition to their market-dominating eBook reader line. Amazon sells lots of books.
Both Ping and Kindle Web app exist to sell more product to more people, but Apple and Amazon have very different strategies.
With Ping, Apple stayed with their typical walled-garden strategy: keep people here, don’t make it easy to share outside of iTunes. It’s too distracting out there.
Kindle Web: keep people here, but bring more in by making it easy to share what I’m reading with Twitter & Facebook friends.
Both Ping and Kindle Web app are bound to evolve. But Amazon got much closer to awesomeness right out of the gate.
Think about your strategies. Are you making it easy for your customers to tell their friends about you online? Or are you so worried that your customers will get distracted by a competitor that you make it hard to share