Why the Ping Love?

Apple held a press conference today to announce their refreshed iPods, Apple TV, iOS updates, and iTunes 10. iTunes 10 includes a social element called "Ping". Essentially it adds some level of profile, micro-blogging, and activity sharing with virtual connections made within the Ping network. Many tech sites and blogs seem to be praising their guts out about it, and I don't entirely understand why.

Ping is iTunes Only

Personally, I think there are a couple of stupid things going on here:

1. It's iTunes only. The only way to interact with Ping is via an iTunes client on your computer or mobile Apple device. That's it. No web interface, and as far as I know, no RSS publication. Just iTunes.
2. It's a new network of friends. As I understand it, Ping is about music discovery. Which is really another way of saying "Encouraging You to Buy More". I get this, and I think it's smart. But why not integrate Ping with the existing networks. Why can't I just hook Ping up to my Facebook and blammo, my network is ready to go. Think of this in your Facebook stream: "5 of your friends bought songs from Justin Bieber on iTunes". Aren't they dropping the ball by creating such a closed social network? Ping as it is cannot reach out to those who haven't already bought into the iTunes way of life.

I don't know, I must be missing something, because it seems like other clients and web apps have been shoe-horning social features exactly like this into their products for a long time. I'm sure with the mass of the iTunes economy this thing is going to be a worthwhile investment for Apple. But Ping doesn't look new or exciting to me, and not nearly as praise-worthy as it could be.

Am I wrong on any of these details? Is a new, closed network actually better than integration with established social networks for some reason?

Update 9/3/2010: Today's reports have it that Facebook was a part of the Ping plan, but a spat between Apple and Facebook prevented the service from being worth anything. I would guess that this will be changed rather soon, but Apple can be very stubborn.