Apple is enjoying the tremendous success and the massive iPhone – iPod Touch apps downloaded from the AppStore, which combined represent more than 100 million iTunes users worldwide, enough to make any music related social network [last.fm, ilike.com, Pandora, etc] more than happy and because of its nature, all or almost all (99.9%) of those users are real buyers, something that makes iTunes even more appealing and profitable.

With this enormous userbase, it is logical, almost natural that Apple could make its own Music Social Network to let users discover new music, share it, rate it and even upload its own samples, a MSN, I mean, a Music Social Network is a natural extension for iTunes and sooner than later Apple will need to leverage the vast numbers of idle users on iTunes, add a few social features and lets them take games, music, books, movies and education material on the go, something that can’t be achieved by any Social Network and while those Networks need to attract buyers, iTunes is filled with millions of them.

It’s not an easy cake, but Apple has more than required to start its own Music Social Network, if Apple doesn’t want to mess up with the idea of developing its own Social Network, there is a big opportunity in buying a well-known and proven one:

1. Last.fm is owned by CBS, so there is nothing to look at it, CBS spent $280 million buying it, too much money, Apple better develop its own.

2. imeen.com: Another excellent choice, it fits perfectly into iTunes Social Network, with a 20 million visit each month + iTunes own traffic, imeen can be swallow buy Apple and put it to work. The drawback is the imeen.com market valuation could be around the $100 million.

3. Pandora. An interesting approach to real social music, organized and growing, Pandora could really be the Social Network that benefit from iTunes and viceversa, but could be a little pricey, Pandora market cap should be around the $100 million.

Given the iTunes ecosystem and Apple‘s behavior, it will be adding those Social features to iTunes and won’t ever call it a social network, Apple likes to differentiate from its rivals.

The environment is set, the clients are ready to buy and the content is always flowing, there’s a BIG opportunity to Apple to became the Bigger Player in the so called Social Networks and with the iPhone, the iPod Touch and the future “iTablt” the profit is more than guaranteed.

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