It is a well known fact that distribution is a huge challenge for mobile apps when compared to facebook apps. Unless you are in the top 25 on appstore, you have a problem getting users. Facebook is nice in that you can leverage the viral channel. There is no such thing on mobile yet. Apple wants to rectify that. It is building its own social network for mobile games and now one for music called Ping.

In a series of announcements today at a press event in San Francisco, Apple made clear that it is planning to build its own social networking features. But how big are its social aspirations? The new version of Apple’s iOS software, 4.1, is due out next week, and it will include the Game Center, a social network service designed specifically for mobile games. That’s been in the works for awhile, and is relatively simple — more surprising is Ping, Apple’s new music social network, designed for iTunes.
Apple is following its familiar playbook of vertical integration by combining hardware, software and now social network.
Is Apple looking to build its own social platform now? Aside from a simple integration in Ping, Facebook is absent in these latest launches, as are all other third party social networking services, like Twitter or MySpace.
In its latest social acquisition, Google has bought mobile game developer
What makes this acquisition a bit more interesting is that SocialDeck has significant cross-platform experience. A non-game product it offers, called Spark, provides social integration across Blackberry, the iPhone and Facebook, while Shake & Spell also works on all three of those platforms.
