Apple on Wednesday waded into the social-networking sphere with the introduction of Ping, a service with iTunes that chief executive Steve Jobs called “social music discovery.”

The service is part of iTunes 10, which Apple released today.

Ping is like Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes, Jobs said at a San Francisco press event. It’s a “social network all about music and built right into iTunes,” he said.

It’s available on the computer, the iPhone, and the iPod touch.

Users can follow their favorite artists publicly or create their own, private profiles, much like Facebook. Users can set up a “circle of friends” and share information only with those people. ITunes will then display top 10 charts that reflect what friends are downloading.

“Get as private and public as you want,” Jobs said. “Privacy is super simple – anyone can do it.”
Ping also includes 17,000 concert listings.

It will be open to 160 million users in 23 countries immediately.

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