Apple have announced their new social network ?Ping? and the latest update for iTunes. iTunes 10.0 and Ping have already gone live. It?s very early days for Ping, so there?s not too much to look at at the moment. But you do get an idea of what?s to come, as more and more user sign up the service will grow.

It?s easy to register, select ?Ping? from the sidebar in iTunes, log in with your iTunes account, and set up a profile. Once a profile is set up it seems to auto populate with some of the music that has been recently purchased and you get the chance to ?like? that music. the auto population seems to be pretty random and not based on most played etc.

After you?ve done that you?re presented with a ?welcome to Ping? screen, and given three options: ?Search for People or Artists?, ?Invite Your Friends by Email?, and ?Connect iTunes Ping with Facebook.? Ping allows you to follow either artists or people. The Facebook connection is best for finding friends on ping, and the ?Artists We Recommend You Follow? for artists. Again, it?s still early days so don?t expect to see much.

Recent Activity offers a feed much like Facebook?s news feed, but it?s all music related. You can see who?s following who and what?s been purchased with the option to make that purchase as well.

The main difference with Ping is that it?s tied to iTunes, which is a different approach to social networks. One that Microsoft has previously tried with Zune Social, it didn?t really work. Online, in browser access is the key to the success of social networks. But there?s no sign of that happening. Deeper integration with Facebook would be a way to do it perhaps.

Ping isn?t active on the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch yet, but should be going live in the not too distant future.

Whether Ping will become the successful social network Apple want it to be is yet to be seen. Some have already labelled it a ?MySpace killer?. It could be a great way of sharing your music tastes with your friends, if your friends are using it.