But that's not Apple's style. Their style is "be amaaaazed at our new thing! It is perfect in every way and your life is useless without it!"

It is Apple's style to some extent--which is why they released a smartphone without copy/paste, multitasking, picture messaging, or 3G. And also why they released an MP3 player with no wifi and less space than a Nomad.

ADDED: When you're Apple, it's true you can't really afford a classic MVP. That doesn't mean perfectionism, it means that although you release something limited, you add in something great that's never been done before. The iPhone was the first phone with a multitouch interface. Plenty of people are willing to overlook not having picture messaging, or 3G, or third party apps for something that great. But you have to do something awesome and new--you can't just rehash the rest of the market.

So what's awesome and new in Ping that's never been done before?

Nothing, which is why it sucks.

They're already way late to the market with a music social network. IMO they should have got it right from the get-go. Startup rules are also different than giant corporation with bundles of cash. With built-in market-share for conversion, they missed an opportunity to impress the tech savvy and early adopters.

Was trying to think of this last night -- has giant company with scads of cash successfully "cold started" a social network in the past?

Let me ask my friends on Buzz...

I'm not sure if they qualify, but what about the gaming networks? Xbox Live and PSN are more content delivery, perhaps battle.net and Steam though?