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Apple's Ill-Fated Social Network 'Ping' Launched 10 Years Ago Today
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The idea was never going to work because artists were already well established on other social platforms and weren't going to upload content to this new thing where they were starting their following from scratch. So with few artists adding content to their pages, users tuned out as well.
But Ping was a two part platform. The other side was about making iTunes social amongst users. This survived both Ping and Connect and remains a part of Apple Music. Allowing you to follow friends and get recommendations based on their musical tastes is a desirable feature and belongs in Apple Music.
I hope Apple continues to elaborate on social features within Apple Music and other iOS apps. I'd like to see social parts of apps all over iOS aggregated somewhere central. iMessage would make the most sense. Tapping on a contact in iMessage should bring me to a profile for that person, showing photos of them in my own library, photos that they've shared with me, Apple News stories they've decided to share to their profile and yes, a playlist compiled from their Apple Music listening history.
Ping might've not worked as a standalone social network but it's clear that people like social features inside of iOS apps.
But Ping was a two part platform. The other side was about making iTunes social amongst users. This survived both Ping and Connect and remains a part of Apple Music. Allowing you to follow friends and get recommendations based on their musical tastes is a desirable feature and belongs in Apple Music.
I hope Apple continues to elaborate on social features within Apple Music and other iOS apps. I'd like to see social parts of apps all over iOS aggregated somewhere central. iMessage would make the most sense. Tapping on a contact in iMessage should bring me to a profile for that person, showing photos of them in my own library, photos that they've shared with me, Apple News stories they've decided to share to their profile and yes, a playlist compiled from their Apple Music listening history.
Ping might've not worked as a standalone social network but it's clear that people like social features inside of iOS apps.
you can't have a "social network" that only works on one platform.
I still think something like this built into Apple Music would be nice. I know it's there somewhere, but I want to see what my friends are listening to live and be able to comment on that stuff...more easily share what I'm listening to, playlists I've created/updated.
Imagine failing at something like this and it being completely irrelevant while sporting a split adjusted $535 stock price and $2.3T valuation.
Why the hell is the stoplight vertical in that screenshot?
Today marks the 10th anniversary of Apple launching its ill-fated social network Ping, which allowed users to follow their favorite music artists and friends within iTunes and discover what songs and albums they were listening to.
Here is how Apple described Ping in a September 2010 press releaseespite a promising start, with more than one million users joining Ping in less than 48 hours after its launch, the service never truly caught on. Ping was officially shut down on September 30, 2012, with Apple CEO Tim Cook noting that "the customer voted and said 'this isn't something that I want to put a lot of energy into'."
Apple launched a similar social platform for artists called Apple Music Connect in 2015, but it suffered the same fate as Ping, shutting down in late 2018.
Article Link: Apple's Ill-Fated Social Network 'Ping' Launched 10 Years Ago Today
How do you write a story about failed Apple social networks and not mention eWorld?
It was just too limited. People might like it for music, but it is like carrying an iPod, a phone, and a portable computer. It is much more sensible to have them integrated into one device.
If Ping relaunched as a social network competitor to Facebook and Twitter with music and the other stuff, BUT with Apple's no tracking etc policies, no censoring based on the political whims of the corporate employees etc, it could succeed.
People want freedom and people want privacy.
If Ping relaunched as a social network competitor to Facebook and Twitter with music and the other stuff, BUT with Apple's no tracking etc policies, no censoring based on the political whims of the corporate employees etc, it could succeed.
People want freedom and people want privacy.
I do believe with appropriate moderation, allowing interpersonal communication in streaming apps does have potential. In China, netease music and QQ music retained decent market share despite having clunky interfaces and requiring users to buy albums separately AFTER a subscription fee – because of the commenting features under each song (and many more).
Ping was not a terrible idea, just ill-executed. In hindsight I actually think it should've been kept on life support and gradually evolved as a leverage against Spotify's "listen simultaneously" feature.
Oh by the way, you look good up there Gaga – congrats on sweeping the VMAs
Ping was not a terrible idea, just ill-executed. In hindsight I actually think it should've been kept on life support and gradually evolved as a leverage against Spotify's "listen simultaneously" feature.
Oh by the way, you look good up there Gaga – congrats on sweeping the VMAs
Apple Music Connect did indeed fail as well. Because it was unusable. It seemed like an afterthought, was not properly integrated with AM, you couldn’t easily find and subscribe to artists, share their posts, save the pictures or special tracks they posted. The entire interface of AM was a mess in its first Incarnation, and Connect was left to die without ever getting any updates or fixes. It seemed they just wanted it to fail. Just like Ping.
but only served the purpose of managing ipods so not everyone that could get online
They should retry this but build it into their apps like they did with Music. A social network doesn‘t have to be a facebook clone, it can also be enabling social interactions as part of your service offering (every feature idea being gated by privacy settings so you can reveal/share only things you want):
Music:
- We can already see a friends taste and what they‘re listening to + share music with them via Messages and co. + share audio playback if closeby (via 2 headsets)
How about...
- Shared listening parties via internet, like Spotify offers on Discord
- Realtime listening info for friends (so I can see wat song they are listening to now & potentially request a listening party)
- Collaborative playlists
- See how people rated songs
TV app:
- Show us what friends have watched or are actively watching and recommend titles they like
- Add a review / rating mechanism, the iTunes store has one... also use said data for recommendations, because mine „plain suck“ right now
- Shared watch parties (think Netflix Party extension or that amazon Prime US only feature), only let friends join if they own a license / sub to access the content (including potential version mismatch checks for censored content) or let me pay for a party by renting X copies of a movie for X friends. Netflix Party is one of the most used extensions for me, I love watching movies or shows with friends that live abroad
Photos app already has shared albums and sharing suggestions, make the latter a tad more accessible (sending a text is confusing, why can‘t there be a way to view invitations in-app)
- Maybe introduce a shared stream I can post to (like an Instagram wall) that people can subscribe to
Contacts app could turn into a way of managing my contact details for others. New phone number? Edit my own contact on my phone and push it to my family and friends, similar to the iMessage name and avatar push.
You can come up with a dozen more of these social features.
Music:
- We can already see a friends taste and what they‘re listening to + share music with them via Messages and co. + share audio playback if closeby (via 2 headsets)
How about...
- Shared listening parties via internet, like Spotify offers on Discord
- Realtime listening info for friends (so I can see wat song they are listening to now & potentially request a listening party)
- Collaborative playlists
- See how people rated songs
TV app:
- Show us what friends have watched or are actively watching and recommend titles they like
- Add a review / rating mechanism, the iTunes store has one... also use said data for recommendations, because mine „plain suck“ right now
- Shared watch parties (think Netflix Party extension or that amazon Prime US only feature), only let friends join if they own a license / sub to access the content (including potential version mismatch checks for censored content) or let me pay for a party by renting X copies of a movie for X friends. Netflix Party is one of the most used extensions for me, I love watching movies or shows with friends that live abroad
Photos app already has shared albums and sharing suggestions, make the latter a tad more accessible (sending a text is confusing, why can‘t there be a way to view invitations in-app)
- Maybe introduce a shared stream I can post to (like an Instagram wall) that people can subscribe to
Contacts app could turn into a way of managing my contact details for others. New phone number? Edit my own contact on my phone and push it to my family and friends, similar to the iMessage name and avatar push.
You can come up with a dozen more of these social features.
I've *never* used any social networking platform because it was obvious to me even then what those companies needed to do to draw their income. I might consider an Apple platform because of their stance on privacy etc., but it would inevitably need to connect with FaceBook users etc. and once those users see your data it's game over. It's kind of like signing up with iCloud Mail because Apple won't monetize the contents of your emails, but the people who receive your emails (e.g. gmail users) store them in Google's world and we all know what that means...
Because it's a ten year anniversary.
