It is kind of surprising but Apple and Twitter have partnered over social network. Popular micro-blogging social network Twitter announced its alliance with Apple's music-centric social network Ping enabling users to share their tastes in music over both social networks. Starting today, the New Twitter web interface users will get to see Ping activity, Song previews, links for purchasing songs and downloading from iTunes store right in their Tweets. All you have to do is link your Twitter account to your Ping account.

New Twitter-Ping integration is certainly going to be beneficial for Apple since Twitter users would be previewing songs and might purchase music from the iTunes Store. Considering the fact that users send around 95 million tweets a day, Apple might see a significant rise in iTunes Music sales in a couple of months.

Apple boasted of having 1 million Ping users aboard in 48 hours of its launch. Now with Twitter integration, there's a good possibility that Twitter users would be interested in checking out Ping and will eventually create an account there.

To get started, Ping users will have to link their Twitter account. Once linked, everything the user posts, his Likes, reviews or any activity performed on Ping would then be tweeted automatically on Twitter. These tweets could contain song previews, and links for purchase and then download of songs from iTunes store.

Users on the New Twitter web interface will get to see song or album details when the link in the Tweet sent via Ping is clicked. Apparently, you can enjoy the song preview on the same page on the right side pane of the New Twitter without leaving the page.

Now here comes the ugly truth. Apple boasts that iTunes song previews are available on Twitter.com in the 23 countries where the iTunes Store offers music. Ping is still not available in India and several other countries. This means Twitter users have to be dependent on the Ping users from other countries to share their links. If you're following too many Ping users who are music enthusiast, then may God save your Twitter timeline.

Only if Ping is made available to more countries just like Twitter is open to the world, the best results of this partnership could be reaped. Till then, it's all marginal benefit.